The House

It's been decades since I've read anything by Danielle Steele. Considering the speed at which she writes, I've been avoiding her, thinking they'd be too repetitive. But no, this was a clever plot and I felt engaged throughout. I'll have to read a few more now until I start recognizing similarities of plots and characters from one book to the next, at which point I generally get bored.

After reading a very lackluster DS book (Miracle) I decided to give her one more shot. After all, some of my favorite authors had books that were 'meh' so I figured that this book would be better. It had a different premise/storyline that sounded good, so I picked it up. It's gotta be better than Miracle, right???

... It wasn't. Ms. Steel makes the same mistake of finding ways to repeat the same thing over and over. Just when I thought DS had finally made something clear and would move on, she just repeated herself with slightly different wording. It was extremely frustrating to see what seemed like a great story idea get this treatment from Ms. Steel.

I read hundreds of books a year...been a book junkie for 56 years. That said, believe it or not, this is my very first Danielle Steel novel. Strange, right???? I have reservations about authors who spit out books as often as I do my laundry. I finally decided to give her a chance, and I have no regrets. I enjoyed the story. There's nothing groundbreaking about it, it was a smoothe, sweet read and I did enjoy getting to know the characters. I believe I will read some more of Danielle's work.

Stanley is a 99 year old who lives alone (with round the clock nurses) in a house built in the 1920's. Sarah, 38, is Stanley's lawyer. He keeps telling her to enjoy life. After Stanley's death, Sarah contacts the 19 heirs to Stanley's huge fortune. Unbeknownst to Sarah, a codicil was also read at the reading of the will giving Sarah $750,000.
Sarah takes Stanley's advice and does do something with the money that was bequeathed to her. She decides to buy Stanley's house. While fixing up the mansion, Sarah learns the secrets of the house and that this house is tied to her family....full circle.

I read the first 35 pages and got lost in thinking too much about anything else than the book itself.

I'm done with Danielle Steel. Time to move on to another writer.

This is a love story that is told in third person about Sarah Anderson, she is in a stable but stuck place in her life , it's always the same , her weekend boy friend don't want anything that the weekend thing they have , her mother things she should settle down , and in her job as a tax lawyer she is befriend by an older gentleman that she highly respects and when he does she rethinks her life and starts to make changes ... i will not leave any spoils here ...

This book is the kind of easy read I'd take to the beach. The storyline runs smoothly and ends in a very satisfying neat and tidy way. A typical Danielle Steel classic.