Danielle Steel

I have to say Danielle Steel caught my eye especially when I picked up the book, The Gift. After I finished reading it, I had to read it again. The story touched me deeply. I went to work the next door telling everyone they had to read the book, it was awesome. I found it a feel good book that really moves the reader. It was then I read many others of Ms. Steel’s books and with each one, she has a way of compiling yet another fabulous tale that pricks the heart, and brings on a smile. Here is her website where one can learn about all the books she has published: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/steel/

The Gift by Danielle Steel

On a June day, a young woman in a summer dress steps off a Chicago-bound bus into a small Midwestern town. She doesn’t intend to stay. She is just passing through. Yet her stopping here has a reason and it is part of a story that you will never forget.

The time is the 1950s, when life was simpler, people still believed in dreams, and family was, very nearly, everything. The place is a small Midwestern town with a high school and a downtown, a skating pond and a movie house. And on a tree-lined street in the heartland of America, an extraordinary set of events begins to unfold. And gradually what seems serendipitous is tinged with purpose. A happy home is shattered by a child’s senseless death. A loving marriage starts to unravel. And a stranger arrives””a young woman who will touch many lives before she moves on. She and a young man will meet and fall in love. Their love, so innocent and full of hope, helps to restore a family’s dreams. And all of their lives will be changed forever by the precious gift she leaves them.

The Gift, Danielle Steel’s thirty-third best-selling work, is a magical story told with stunning simplicity and power. It reveals a relationship so moving it will take your breath away. And it tells a haunting and beautiful truth about the unpredictability””and the wonder””of life.

If I may, I did want to add another author and a book that captivated me. When I read The Bridges of Madison County, I was blown way. I kept thinking, wow, a man wrote this. It was a love story that really pulled at the heartstrings. This is Mr. Waller’s website: http://www.madisoncounty.com/novel.html

The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

When Robert Kincaid drives through the heat and dust of an Iowa summer and turns into Francesca Johnson’s farm lane looking for directions, the world-class photographer and the Iowa farm wife are joined in an experience of uncommon truth and stunning beauty that will haunt them forever. The romantic classic of the 1990’s.

In August 1965, 52-year-old divorce Robert Kincaid packs his pickup truck and travels to Iowa’s Madison County, the location of seven covered bridges he is to photograph for National Geographic . There, he asks directions of Francesca Johnson, alone at home while her husband and two children visit the Illinois State Fair. Initially, neither Robert nor Francesca expects their random encounter to lead to seduction, yet their mutual desire is undeniable. Waller tells their story as though it were nonfiction, claiming to have heard about Francesca from her children after her death, read her journals, seen Robert’s relics of those four days and interviewed a jazz musician who knew the photographer. Scenes between the lovers are movingly evoked and moments with Francesca, who celebrates her birthday 22 years later by reflecting on her brief time with Robert, are particularly poignant. An erotic, bittersweet tale of lingering memories and forsaken possibilities.