5 results for "History"

Happiness A Novel

Danielle Steel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Danielle Steel comes an uplifting novel about an author who—to her surprise—inherits a grand estate near London. Sabrina Brooks is a wildly successful bestselling author of gripping thrillers. Unlike her fictional characters, Sabrina lives a quiet life in the Berkshires with her two beloved dogs. But behind this peaceful exterior is a dark, painful past. As a child raised by an emotionally distant father, Sabrina rarely felt love. And as an adult, her marriage twisted into an abusive relationship from which she had to escape. Sabrina channeled that fear into her writing, and now she has everything she’s ever wanted—until the arrival of a mysterious letter disrupts it all, declaring that Sabrina, as the only living relative of her recently deceased uncle, is now the heir to his title and estate outside London. This shocking news forces her to cross the Atlantic and see the manor for herself, stirring up her father’s past and the secrets he kept. Determined at first to sell the estate quickly and return home, Sabrina is surprised by how much she loves roaming the gardens and exploring the historic manor. She can’t help but admire her surroundings, especially with the handsome estate attorney, Grayson Abbott, acting as her tour guide. As she learns more about the family history, Sabrina begins to wonder what life would be like as “Lady Brooks,” and if she could upend the stability for which she has worked so hard. Is she brave enough to choose a different path? In Happiness, Danielle Steel creates an unforgettable story about inner strength, following your joy, and the rejuvenating power of love.
Diversified Publishing 2023-09-05 304 pages

Past Perfect A Novel

Danielle Steel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Past Perfect is a spellbinding story of two families living a hundred years apart who come together in time in a startling moment, opening the door to rare friendship and major events in early-twentieth-century history. Sybil and Blake Gregory have established a predictable, well-ordered Manhattan life—she as a cutting-edge design authority and museum consultant, he in high-tech investments—raising their teenagers Andrew and Caroline and six-year-old Charlie. But everything changes when Blake is offered a dream job he can’t resist as CEO of a start-up in San Francisco. He accepts it without consulting his wife and buys a magnificent, irresistibly underpriced historic Pacific Heights mansion as their new home. The past and present suddenly collide for them in the elegant mansion filled with tender memories and haunting portraits when an earthquake shocks them the night they arrive. The original inhabitants appear for a few brief minutes. In the ensuing days, the Gregorys meet the large and lively family who lived there a century ago: distinguished Bertrand Butterfield and his gracious wife Gwyneth, their sons Josiah and little Magnus, daughters Bettina and Lucy, formidable Scottish matriarch Augusta and her eccentric brother Angus. All long since dead. All very much alive in spirit—and visible to the Gregorys and no one else. The two families are delighted to share elegant dinners and warm friendship. They have much to teach each other, as the Gregorys watch the past unfold while living their own modern-day lives. Within these enchanted rooms, it is at once 1917 and a century later, where the Gregorys gratefully realize they have been given a perfect gift—beloved friends and the wisdom to shape their own future with grace from a fascinating past. Past Perfect is Danielle Steel at her bewitching best, a novel for the ages.
Random House Publishing Group 2018-08-07 368 pages

Precious Gifts A Novel

Danielle Steel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Handsome, widowed, sophisticated, utterly charming, Paul Parker won the heart of a wealthy young Frenchwoman—the daughter of an American financier, the granddaughter of a major French art dealer—as his second wife. In two marriages, he fathered a challenging son and three very different daughters. But as irresponsible as he was irresistible, he ultimately shrugged off the demands of marriage and parenting to pursue life as an international bon vivant. Raised by their mother with all the care and resolve their father lacked, the three Parker sisters have become vibrant, self-reliant young women: Timmie, the oldest, a fiercely dedicated social worker in New York; sweet, nurturing Juliette, proprietor of a fledgling bakery in Brooklyn; and their younger sister, Joy, who is struggling to build an acting career in Los Angeles. While they love their mostly absent, glamorous father, he has left them with a legacy of impermanence and uncertainty in their own relationships with men. And with no strong role model to guide him, Paul’s son has gone from one failure to another, even while his stepmother makes excuses for him, as he seethes with jealousy of his younger sisters. Now, after a long illness, Paul has slipped away peacefully in his sleep, and his family has gathered together to read his will. As his final wishes are revealed, his son is forced to face reality as an adult. And his daughters see a new side to their father—one that shows a caring man trying to redeem himself with a different, lasting legacy. He has made a very personal bequest to each of his children, carefully designed to help them achieve their own unique dreams and find true happiness. But Paul has saved the biggest surprise for his ex-wife Véronique: a secret from the past that shakes her world and sets her free. He leaves her a gift that remained a mystery for their entire marriage, and she begins a search to discover its history and rightful owner. The story of a man’s last wish to make a difference—and of the loved ones he leaves behind fulfilling their destinies at last— Precious Gifts is bursting with indelible characters and emotional complexity as it takes readers from New York and Los Angeles to the art capitals of Europe and the South of France. Inspiring and uplifting, it is a deeply moving exploration of the rich territory of loss, inheritance, and reawakening—Danielle Steel at the height of her literary prowess.
Random House Publishing Group 2016-06-28 416 pages

Silent Honor

Danielle Steel
In her 38th bestselling novel, Danielle Steel creates a powerful, moving portrayal of families divided, lives shattered and a nation torn apart by prejudice during a shameful episode in recent American history. A man ahead of his time, Japanese college professor Masao Takashimaya of Kyoto had a passion for modern ideas that was as strong as his wife's belief in ancient traditions. It was the early 1920s and Masao had dreams for the future--and a fascination with the politics and opportunities of a world that was changing every day. Twenty years later, his eighteen-year-old daughter Hiroko, torn between her mother's traditions and her father's wishes, boarded the "SS Nagoya Maru" to come to California for an education and to make her father proud. It was August 1941. From the ship, she went directly to the Palo Alto home of her uncle, Takeo, and his family. To Hiroko, California was a different world--a world of barbeques, station wagons and college. Her cousins in California had become more American than Japanese. And much to Hiroko's surprise, Peter Jenkins, her uncle's assistant at Stanford, became an unexpected link between her old world and her new. But in spite of him, and all her promises to her father, Hiroko longs to go home. At college in Berkeley, her world is rapidly and unexpectedly filled with prejudice and fear. On December 7, Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese. Within hours, war is declared and suddenly Hiroko has become an enemy in a foreign land. Terrified, begging to go home, she is nonetheless ordered by her father to stay. He is positive she will be safer in California than at home, and for a brief time she is--until her entire world cavesin. On February 19, Executive Order 9066 is signed by President Roosevelt, giving the military the power to remove the Japanese from their communities at will. Takeo and his family are given ten days to sell their home, give up their jobs, and report to a relocation center, along with thousands of other Japanese and Japanese Americans, to face their destinies there. Families are divided, people are forced to abandon their homes, their businesses, their freedom, and their lives. Hiroko and her uncle's family go first to Tanforan, and from there to the detention center at Tule Lake. This extraordinary novel tells what happened to them there, creating a portrait of human tragedy and strength, divided loyalties and love. It tells of Americans who were treated as foreigners in their own land. And it tells Hiroko's story, and that of her American family, as they fight to stay alive amid the drama of life and death in the camp at Tule Lake. With clear, powerful prose, Danielle Steel portrays not only the human cost of that terrible time in history, but also the remarkable courage of a people whose honor and dignity transcended the chaos that surrounded them. Set against a vivid backdrop of war and change, her thirty-eighth bestselling novel is both living history and outstanding fiction, revealing the stark truth about the betrayal of Americans by their own government...and the triumph of a woman caught between cultures and determined to survive.
Delacorte Press 1996 353 pages

Legacy

Danielle Steel
This cloth-bound special edition of Danielle Steel's Legacy is enhanced with gold leaf, comes with a special slip case, and is signed by the author. This compelling, centuries-spanning novel brilliantly interweaves the lives of two women--a writer working in the heart of modern academia and a daring young Sioux Indian on an incredible journey in the eighteenth century. The result is an unforgettable story of courage in the face of the unknown. At the age of thirty-eight, Brigitte Nicholson has a job she likes, a man she loves, and a book on the women's suffrage movement that she will finish--someday. Someday is Brigitte's watchword. Someday she and Ted, a rising star in the field of archaeology, will clarify their relationship. Someday she will have children. Someday she will stop playing it so safe. Then, on a snowy day in Boston, Brigitte's life is jolted. Suddenly everything she counted on has changed and she finds herself questioning every choice she has made along the way. As she struggles to regain her balance and plot a new course, Brigitte agrees to help her mother on a family genealogy project. In Salt Lake City at the Family History Library, she makes a stunning discovery--reaching back to the French aristocracy. How did Brigitte's mysterious ancestor Wachiwi, a Dakota Sioux, travel from the Great Plains to the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette--and into the arms of a French marquis? How did she come to marry into Brigitte's family? What is the truth behind the tantalizing clues in the fragmented, centuries-old records? Following the threads of Wachiwi's life, Brigitte travels to South Dakota, then on to Paris, irresistibly drawn to this brave young woman who lived so long ago. And as she comes closer to solving the puzzle of Wachiwi's journey, her previously safe, quiet life becomes an adventure of its own. A chance meeting with a writer of historical fiction, a new opportunity, and a difficult choice put Brigitte at last in the forefront of her own story. With a complex and powerful family legacy coming to life around her, someday is no longer in the future. Instead, in Danielle Steel's mesmerizing new novel, someday is now.
Random House Publishing Group 2010-10-26 336 pages