Trophy House — Anne Bernays

Trophy House is an extraordinary and complex novel, at one level a romantic thriller, at another a deeply satisfying story about the disintegration of a marriage and the consequences for all concerned.

It begins with the construction of a totally inappropriate and enormous house -- a "trophy house" -- which unexpectedly comes to threaten the tranquility of what appears to be one woman's perfect life and marriage.

Dannie Faber has lots of reasons to feel blessed. A children's book illustrator, she shares a loving marriage with Tom, an M.I.T. professor, with whom she divides her time between one of Boston's finest suburbs and a beloved beach house in Truro, on Cape Cod.

And then, for reasons she could not possibly have foreseen, Dannie's life begins to unravel.

With Trophy House, Anne Bernays -- author of Professor Romeo and Growing Up Rich -- delivers a poignant, funny, and ultimately wrenching story of adults in peril and the unlikely hope for romance that, in the end, becomes the key to surviving events that are beyond their control.