The Ghost

This is my favourite book for a reason. It is simple, yet so complicated.

When I read this book when I was 13, it was the first book that made me genuinely escape. Danielle writes so specific but so perfect. It's enough detail that you can sense your surrounding but not so much that you feel as though you are spending half a page understand the hue of the curtains that means nothing to the story whatsoever.

I love the characters and the idea that the story brings. It's familiar yet so different at the same time and it leans into it so perfectly.

It is a fun book and a quick read, though very predictable. It is a story within a story. The main character finds a journal written in the 1700s by a woman named Sara. I really like the story of Sara. (However it does annoy me that Sara's journal was written as a novel and not in the first person.)

I haven't read a Danielle Steel novel in a really long time. I saw this one at my favorite used book store dollar sale and since the premise sounded interesting I decided to give it a go. Danielle Steel's writing is incredibly stylized and unique to her. Every word is written to convey the utmost correctness and manners. It's like your old proper English teacher is telling you a story. There is no doubt that her writing is very elegant but grates on me after awhile. Her story ideas are always wonderful but sometimes the execution leaves me cold.

This novel begins in the present day with Charlie who has just been left by his wife Carole for the man she has been having an affair with. Even though Charlie is a cuckold, he still manages to show more keep things civil with Carole because in Steel's worlds manners are everything. Charlie leaves his home in England to go on an extended vacation in Vermont in order to get his head on straight. He ends up living in a house built for an English woman settler named Sarah by her French husband Francois in the late 1700's. Charlie finds Sarah's journals (and ghost!) in the house and learns about her love story with Francois. That story coupled with new acquaintance Francesca allows Charlie to finally move past the loss of his wife and into his future.

Sarah's story was the most interesting part of the book for me and the main reason to read it. This is a good book to read if your heading to the beach or just want to check out of reality for awhile. If you enjoy Danielle Steel novels you know what you are getting. show less

This is one of Steel's better novels. Very little rich life style. The interspersion of the two love stories worked well.

This book was terrible. If it wasn't for my inability to not finish a book I would have thrown it out of the window. None of the characters were well developed, they whined constantly and the repetitiveness. Oh my god the repetitiveness!

On page 300 I do not need to be told that the mc is upset because his wife left him - I learned that on page 1. There was nothing left to common sense or the imagination. I don't like it when a writer treats me like I have the attention span of a gnat.

Someone told me that this was the best Danielle Steele book. If this is the best, I don't even want to think about what the other books are like!

It switched between the contemporary story of Charles Waterston. Charlie's wife has left him, he is transferred to a job he hates in New York. Charlie takes a leave of absence and drives through New England. As a snow storm builds he stops in a small town in Massachusetts. There he meets an elderly widow who befriends him. He rents a house that had been built for a woman named Sarah Ferguson. He finds her diaries and learns her story.

Sarah Ferguson flees her abusive husband in England to come to America. Sarah survives the dangerous trip across the sea and builds in America. We meet Francois de Pellerin, a French nobleman. Francois had lived among the Indians. They face the Indian Wars.

I really enjoyed both story lines.

Charles meets show more Monique and her mother Francesca. show less

So sad...this story took a bit out of me.

Update 6/22/2019:
The last time I read this story I was bawling at the end and it has taken me maybe 13+ years to have the strength to re-read, and again I'm bawling. I can't seem to stop thinking about the story. I think this will be one of those stories that will always affect me emotionally each time I read it and once years has passed I will desire to read and re-live it again.