Summary
"Rosie and Abigail are like family," Ina Merriweather used to say. That is, until the day Ina abruptly cast out her housekeeper, Rosie, and her fifteen-year-old daughter Abigail. Abigail felt deeply betrayed, especially by Ina's daughter Lila, who was her closest friend. Only Lila's twin brother Vaughn, with whom Abigail had been exploring the joys and heartaches of first love, showed any compassion. Now, twenty-five years later, an old score is about to be settled...and an old love rekindled. Abigail is now a self-made woman who has built an empire out of the homemaking skills she learned from her mother. When Lila, who married well and for decades lived the glittering life of a Park Avenue socialite, suffers a tragic reversal of fortune, an opportunity to right an old wrong lands squarely in Abigail's lap. Lila seeks the help of her childhood friend, but learns that the only opening available at the moment is as her housekeeper and Lila has no choicebut to accept. At the same time, Abigail is coping with the fallout from a fire in her Mexico factory, which took the life of an innocent girl, whose mother, Concepción Morales, now seeks the rich señora she holds responsible for her daughter's death. In a collision of fate, Abigail, Lila, and Concepción are thrown together and must unite to save one another...and themselves.
Eileen Goudge was born July 4, 1950 and grew up in the San Francisco bay area. She began writing at the age of eight. At eighteen, she dropped out of college, ran off with a man dodging the draft, and got married. Two years later, she was divorced, with a baby, and had to go on welfare. She decided to become a professional writer, started writing non-stop and managed to sell a few articles. In the early eighties, she was chosen to help launch a new line of teen romances, which became the successful Sweet Valley High series. She now had enough money to end another bad marriage and move to New York City with her two children. She continued to write the Sweet Valley High titles while working on a novel. Her first novel, Garden of Lies, was sold in 1986 to Viking for nearly one million dollars. Since then, she has written over thirty novels for young adults and over ten works of women's fiction. Her other works include Thorns of Truth, The Diary, and Once in a Blue Moon. Her title The Diary is a New York Times bestseller.
(Bowker Author Biography)
