The Woman Next Door / by Barbara Delinsky

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Cozy suburban neighborhoods are meant for families; not young, buxom, recently-widowed women who've mysteriously become pregnant. For Amanda O'Leary, the news that her beautiful but reclusive next door neighbor Gretchen Tannenwald is suddenly with child--father unspecified--carries some twisted irony. Since their wedding day, Amanda and her husband Graham have tried everything imaginable to have a baby, a fact made all the more unbearable by her knowledge of Graham's ambitions for multiple children and Graham's family's equally fervent affinity for lots of kids. Now with a mystery baby next door, Amanda can't keep away the nagging suspicions that Graham just may have fathered Gretchen's baby. After all, from what Amanda's observed, Gretchen is convincingly friendlier with men than she is with women, never hesitating to ask Graham for assistance on more than one occasion.

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Amanda's friends Karen Cotter and Georgia Lange, also neighbors in the same cul-de-sac, have too begun to speculate on the parentage of Gretchen's baby, each possessing reasons enough to suspect their own husbands in with the pool of potential candidates. Karen, a stay-at-home mother of three, has already stood witness to multiple incidents of infidelity by her husband Russ and Georgia's husband Lee, while more trustworthy, also spends the most time around the house acting as the surrogate "mom" to the couple's two kids during Georgia's lengthy business trips. As the months pass and Gretchen's belly swells, Amanda and company endure the irritation of not knowing the origin of the pregnancy, a secret offsetting problems within each woman's lives, families, friendships and marriages.

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A lifelong New Englander and former cancer survivor, Barbara Delinsky has been a prominent writer since the 1980's, taking up the craft after reading a magazine article on writing your own novel. She has since authored dozens of domestic fiction books, all with relavent themes, well-crafted stories and intriguing characters. Knowledgeable about personal insecurities and internal pressures within relationships, Delinsky excels at creating context, authenticating the characters with appropriate enough conditions and capabilities to fully illuminate each's situation. The Woman Next Door, with its captivating plot, multi-dimensional characters and endearing protagonist, creates an alluring, well-rounded story which is sure to satisfy its audience and resonate with readers.