Lives of Value — Sharleen Cooper Cohen

Suzanne Winston is on top of the world when her latest novel makes the New York Times best-seller list. To her younger sister, Steffani Blacker, Suzanne has it all--or nearly. A successful writer of popular fiction, mother of three and a beautiful, vivacious woman recently free of an unhappy marriage, Suzanne seems to be someone to envy and admire. Steffani is also brilliant and beautiful but is desperately ill with Gaucher's Disease, the painful hereditary illness that has plagued her since childhood. Unable to bear children, too easily led into wild, intense intimacy with the wrong men, Steffani is determined to live every moment before her time runs out. And so Steffani, terribly brave yet terrified of dying, is tempted to settle old scores and get even with "perfect" Suzanne in all the ways a sister can wound a sister with word, a phone call or a careless betrayal of secrets.



But what Steffani doesn't see is the deep insecurity and dark feelings that shadow Suzanne's carefully controlled world of family, home and career. Suzanne's ex-husband, Alex, the handsome, successful attorney she adored since she was a teenager, has left her scarred and mistrustful of men. Then a disturbing anonymous letter threatens to destroy her reputation and leave her financially ruined. Suddenly her comfortable Los Angeles life-style, her family and friends, and her fabulous success are slipping away into a nightmare existence that will shake her loyalties and values, and even endanger her life. In this crisis, Suzanne must learn whom she can trust--the new man who holds out an irresistible promise of passion, the sister she both loves and resents or the parents who are wrapped up in their own pain.