Read by Carrington MacDuffie

A posh New York apartment building on Park Avenue is home to the rich and famous: Sidney Sapphire, the blond anchorwoman of ABC News; Angela Somoza, the gorgeous Nicaraguan jet-setter; Bob Horowitz, the former chairman of the United Jewish Appeals; and the usual collection of banking and industrial CEOs, Wall Street magnates, and white-haired philanthropists. Vinnie Ferretti, the Brooklyn-born doorman, joins the ranks when he becomes a major fashion designer. The co-op board, rich as clotted cream, sips gin in the afternoons and devises ways to keep out anyone deemed "inappropriate." Stifled resentments come to a head when some suspect the board of more discrimination toward prospective buyers than might be legal. Better Homes and Husbands is a stylish, richly woven novel about class feuds during the tumultuous period of social change between 1970 and 2000. "Leff's debut has all the elements of an Austenian novel of manners." "A novel of manners written with skill and heart and powers of observation as sharp as a boning knife-my idea of heaven." "Battles of race, religion, and ideology give an edge to this cozy chronicle. Leff provides plenty of glittering details, but she doesn't neglect the lives of the building's service people…Her protagonists are types, but Leff is skilled at teasing out their small idiosyncrasies. Sedate and slightly old-fashioned, this is a warmhearted, generously imagined New York story."

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