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This sequel to the very popular PEYTON PLACE, the film that inspired the long-running soap opera, follows its predecessor closely as a story that exposes a small New England town's bigotry and backstabbing. Lynley plays a young author about to have her first book published. The book is a realistic depiction of the people in her small town and holds nothing back in relating to the world the gossip and goings-on of the people who live there. When the book is published, the whole town is outraged, and Lynley's father, Sterling, loses his job as principal when he refuses to remove the book from the library shelves. Weld plays a young woman who was raped by her stepfather and has problems holding on to her current love. Astor is the self-righteous mother-in-law who tries to destroy her son's marriage because he is married to an Italian. A town meeting is called, and Sterling has the chance to defend the novel, making points about freedom of speech and its importance in society; Lynley grows through the experience, realizing that she cannot go through with her affair with her publisher, Chandler, a married man; Astor's son stands up to her in the end and points out how her bigotry will destroy their relationship; and Weld is reunited with her boy friend. Given the best of glossy Hollywood treatment with none of the original's authentic New England countryside scenes, the story and its themes tend to evolve to a predictable ending. Astor is marvelous in her role as the overbearing mother, however, and Weld, virtually unknown at the time, starred in a role that displayed her natural sex appeal. An interesting note to the story is that writer Grace Metalious really was rejected by her home town when her novel Peyton Place was first published. She was, in fact, never welcomed back because her book hit too close to the homes of most of the residents.