Treasures by Belva Plain

From the Publisher

A story of family ... the Osbornes -- two sisters  and a brother -- united by family ties but split  apart by different dreams. Lara, the happy young  wife, longs for the family that will make her life  whole. Connie, wild and lovely, is more like her  brother Eddy -- bright, ambitious, and ready to  seize all that life has to offer. A story of  choices... Connie is looking for wealth -- to make or to  marry. Lara, staying behind in a small Ohio town,  finds everything she cherishes threatened by fate  and by her own blind commitment. And Eddy, as Wall  Street's "wonder boy," can make  millions... if he ruthlessly uses his family and friends. A  story of marriages... Lara's held together by  devotion, Connie's shattered by infidelity and  betrayal, and Eddy's rocked by shame and prison. Torn by  conflicting loyalties, they are a family caught in  the tides of scandal ... and swept toward a fate  where dreams may end or be born  again...

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Plain's ( Harvest ) fast, absorbing family saga makes hay with the scandals and excesses that have prompted the latest backlash against Wall Street. As it opens, the three Osborne siblings are burying their poor but decent mother in their native Ohio. Lara, married to her high school sweetheart, embraces the old-fashioned values of hearth and home. Eddy and Connie, on the other hand, hanker after glamour and glitter. Connie heads for Texas, where she strikes pay dirt in the form of a kind and well-to-do husband; when the marriage fails, it's through no one's fault, and she ends up with one of Wall Street's wealthiest wizards. Eddy, gone to Manhattan, eventually starts his own brokerage firm, where he moves from questionable tax shelters and leveraged buyouts to insider trading and fraud. Lara and her husband attain a more modest degree of success--until they take advice from Eddy. If Plain uses a sledgehammer to drive home the worn but comforting notion that the real ``treasures'' in life are love and good health, her ultimately sweet story nonetheless serves up enough conflicts, twists and moments of truth to grip her audience. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

Low blows from the high-finance, Wall Street greed-group (and groupies) nearly extinguish the togetherness of three Ohio siblings and families in this hortatory tale, a Plain Bonfire (here, more of a Bic-flick) of contemporary vanities. For the faithful readership, there are familiar goodies along with the uplift: meteoric rises to fortune, glamorous settings, and lots and lots of luxury. In 1976, gathered in the family home in a small Ohio town after their mother's death, are Lara, her husband Davey, sister Connie, and brother Eddy. But only Connie and Eddy suffer from little-town blues. Lara is devoted to Davey, who will eventually start his own factory making medical equipment, but she has one grief—they're childless. Meanwhile, Connie, in Houston and New York, and Eddy, on Wall Street, begin a rocket ascent. Connie marries nice, wealthy Richard (who has a sad secret), divorces, and then marries expansive, rich Martin. And Eddy, it seems, has a magic money-touch. (His library walls "of rich French boiserie were precious. The needlepoint rug was handmade. Above the fireplace...a Sargent?") But Eddy has also been dealing dirty and, with all good intentions, has put Davey's factory in jeopardy. Eddy is headed for a giant fall. Martin, too, is sure he's helping Davey by suggesting and aiding a takeover. On the domestic front, Lara's motherhood dreams come true, and Connie suffers a tragedy (although she makes "a stunning widow, slender in black with a single strand of eleven-millimeter pearls") before finding a lasting love. It all ends with the siblings and families reunited around a Thanksgiving table, the two high-flyers poorer but wiser. Plain's readership is foreordained.(Literary Guild Dual Selection for April)

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