Riverside Drive — Laura Van Wormer

On New York's Upper West Side, where Manhattan overlooks the Hudson, there's a very special place called Riverside Drive. With palatial homes along one side and the promenades of Riverside Park on the other, with its posh townhouses and pre-war apartments, the Drive is a boulevard of grace and beauty, giving no hint as to the secrets of the residents who live--and love there. The time is Reagan's America

There are five households on the Drive that share a common bond, a wisecracking but fiercely loyal cleaning woman, Rosanne DiSantos, who is forever stumbling onto the kinds of dirt her employers dearly wish would remain under the rug. There the Cochrans--beautiful Cassy, handsome Michael, and perfect son Henry. For people in television, as the Cochrans are, appearances are everything, and the Cochrans' marriage is no exception as Cassy wonders whether it's going to be Alexandra Waring (the stunning young anchorwoman who has taken New York by a storm), alcohol, or her own identity crisis that is going to tear her family apart for the last time.

Then there are the Stewarts--Howard and Melissa, book editor and banker. They are the perfect yuppie couple--so long as love and sex aren't part of the definition.

Third, there is the very lovely, very wealthy writer Amanda Miller, whose disastrous first marriage has made her perhaps the youngest recluse around. But Amanda's body has never agreed with her weary heart, and so when Rosanne arranges for Howard Stewart to call...

Fourth, there are the Wyatts--Sam, Harriet and daughters Althea and Samantha. The Wyatts are one of the most prominent black professional couples in New York, but everything they've worked for is at risk when Sam is dragged into a corporate scandal reaching from Wall Street to South Africa.

And, finally, there is Mrs. Emma Goldblum, the warm and wonderful grande dame of the Drive, whose only terrible secret is the poverty which her son has reduced her to.

And now it's time to simply step aside and wave you on to the world of Riverside Drive .