5 hours 15 minutes

It began almost like a fairy tale. Plain Jane and Prince Charming met in college, fell in love, and were married soon after graduation. She shelved her dreams of a career as a painter to help him through medical school, and to be the perfect doctor's wife. He became a successful plastic surgeon and they had two beautiful children together.

But real life is no fairy tale. Suspecting there was another woman behind his erratic schedule, she went to his office to confront him. What happens that night leads to the end of a marriage and the break up of a family.

Like Whispers, Belva Plain's novel about spousal abuse, After the Fire deals with one of the more provocative issues of our time: the battle of child custody as a woman finds herself overpowered by her husband's ruthless actions. Here is the story of one such woman who, in the aftermath of an ugly divorce, alone must rebuild her world, find the strength and wherewithal to live in it, and regain a life with her chilren.

Only Belva Plain, with her insight into the American family and the hearts of those who comprise it, could create a novel like this, showing that sometimes even real life can have a happy ending.