Evergreen Book

This is one of my favorite books of all time. My mother gave me a copy when I was a teenager and I stayed up late many nights reading under the covers long after I should have been asleep. It is a sweeping family saga full of characters you care about, and whom you will miss when you put this book back on the shelf. Anna, Paul and Joseph are real people with real flaws, a refreshing change from the perfect protagonists that Danielle Steele is famous for (and who happen to bug the heck out of me). A period novel rich in historical detail, reading it made me feel transported back a few decades and yet it never lost sight of the struggles and triumphs of the main characters; the historical details never overwhelmed them. This book was my introduction to Belva Plain, and I went on to read the two sequels to Evergreen (also fabulous) as well as nearly all of her other books. She is a compelling author and I've been hooked on her stories for years!