From her secret perch at the top of the stairs, Gabriella Harrison watches the guests arrive at her parents' lavish Manhattan town house. At seven, she knows she is an intruder in her parents' life. Later, hiding in a closet, the click, click, click of her mother's high heels will strike terror in her heart. Gabriella believes, as she is told, that she is to blame for her mother's rage -- and her father's failure to protect her. Her world is a confusing blend of terror, betrayal, and pain. Her parents' aristocratic world is no safeguard against the abuse that knows no boundaries, respects no person, no economic lines. Gabriella knows that, try as she might, there is no safe place for her to hide. Even as a child, her only escape is through the stories she writes. Only writing can dull the pain of her lonely world. And when her parents' marriage collapses, Gabriella is given her first reprieve, as her father disappears, and then her mother abandons her to a convent. There, Gabriella's battered body and soul begin to mend. Amid the quiet safety and hushed rituals of the nuns, Gabriella grows into womanhood in a safe, peaceful world. Then a young priest comes into her life. Father Joe Connors never questioned his vocation until Gabriella entered the confessional and shared her soul. Confession leades to friendship. And friendship grows dangerously into love. Like Gabriella, Joe is haunted by the pain of his childhood, consumed by guilt over a family tragedy, for which he blames himself. With Gabriella, Joe takes the first steps toward healing. But their relationship leads to disaster as Joe must choose between priesthood and Gabriella, and life in the real world where he fears he does not belong, and cannot cope. Exiled and disgraced, and nearly destroyed, Gabriella struggles to survive on her own in New York. There she seeks healing and escape through her writing again, this time as an adult, she is beyond hurt.

At 18 Angélique Latham is her father's closest, most trusted child, schooled in managing their grand estate. But when he dies, her half-brothers brutally turn her out. Unable to secure employment without connections, Angélique desperately makes her way to Paris, where she rescues a young woman fleeing an abusive madam. With her upper-class breeding, her impeccable style and her father's bequest, Angélique creates Le Boudoir, soon a sensational establishment where powerful men, secret desires and beautiful women come together.

In Danielle Steel's forty-eighth best selling novel, a Hollywood wedding sets the scene for a vivid portrayal of a prominent family whose hopes and fears are as real as our own.

The White Dinner is a love poem to friendship, joy, elegance, and the monuments of Paris. And each year it is an unforgettable summer night, especially for Jean-Philippe Dumas, a longtime participant, and the three couples he's carefully selected to attend this exclusive and cherished event. Interweaving the stories of seven individuals, lives will be forever changed on the eve of one such White Dinner; a night that will lead to new friendships, new love, and of course, magical possibilities.

Paul Parker was the ultimate bon vivant, charismatic but feckless, who left his wealthy wife and three beautiful daughters wounded and wary of men. But after his death, Paul shows surprising insight in the bequests he leaves to each. Knowing that Veronique's wealth is reserved for emergencies and special cases, so as to build the sense of responsibility he failed to provide, Paul aims to address their daughters' immediate needs in his will.

In the early 1920's, Japanese college profressor Masao Takashimaya of Kyoto had a passion for modern ideas that was as strong as his wife's belief in ancient tradition. Twenty years later, his 18-year-old daughter Hiroko, torn between her mother's traditions and her father's wishes, boarded SS Nagoya Maru to come to California for an education, and to make her father proud. It was August 1941. To Hiroko, California, and the home of her uncle Takeo, was a different world. Her cousins in California had become more American than Japanese. And Peter Jenkins, her uncle's assistant at Stanford, became an unexpected link between her old world and her new. At college in Berkeley, her world is rapidly and unexpectedly filled with prejudice and fear. And when Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese, within hours, Hiroko has become an enemy in a foreign land. Desperate to go home, she is 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 caves in. 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. 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.

At thirty-nine, Tallie Jones is a Hollywood legend. Her work as a film director is her passion and the center of her life; one after another, her award-winning productions achieve the rare combination of critical and commercial success. With no interest in the perks of her profession or the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, Tallie maintains close and loving relationships with her college-age daughter and her aging father, and has a happy collaboration with Hunter Lloyd. her respected producing partner....

To look at one was to see the other. For her family, even the girls' own father, it was a constant guessing game. For strangers, the surprise was overwhelming. And for the twins Olivia and Victoria Henderson, two remarkable young women coming of age at the turn of the century, their bond was mysterious, marvelous, and often playful -- a secret realm only they inhabited. Olivia and Victoria were the beloved daughters of a man who never fully recovered from his wife's death bearing them in 1893. Shy, serious Olivia, born eleven minutes before her sister, had taken over the role of mother in their lush New York estate, managing not only a household but her rebellious twin's flights of fancy. Free-spirited Victoria wanted to change the world. She embraced the women's suffrage movement and dreamed of sailing to war-torn Europe. Then, in the girls' twenty-first year, as the First World War escalated overseas, a fateful choice changed their lives forever. It began when Victoria's life was about to become a public scandal. It led to a painful decision, and brought handsome lawyer Charles Dawson into the Hendersons' life and family. Hand-picked by the twins' father to save his daughter's reputation, Charles was still mourning his wife's death aboard the Titanic, struggling to raise his nine-year-old son alone, determined never to lose his heart again. Charles wanted to believe that for the sake of his son he could make an unwanted marriage work. But in an act of deception that only Olivia and Victoria could managa, the twins took an irrevocable step, which changed both their lives forever; and took one of the twins to the battlefield of France, the other into a marriage she longed for but could not have.

For 14 years, Steve and Meredith Whitman have sustained a marriage of passion and friendship - despite the demands of two all-consuming careers. But now new opportunities present irresistible forces that could pull their perfect marriage apart.

Being married to Blake had been an amazing adventure for Maxine. For five years, they've worked out an odd but amicable divorce, with friendly though infrequent visits, a yacht he lends her every summer, and three children they both adore. Now Maxine has fallen in love with Dr. Charles West, a man who is everything Blake is not - mature, grounded, and present. But Blake wants her back in his life.

A chubby little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body conscious Los Angeles. Her parents are disappointed by their daughter’s looks. Later in life, the one thing Victoria knows is that she has to get as far away from home as possible and, after college in Chicago (which her parents disapprove of), she moves to New York City.

The epitome of intelligence, high-powered energy, and grace, Blaise McCarthy is an icon in the world of television news, asking the tough questions and taking on the emotionally charged issues of world affairs and politics with courage and insight. A single mother, she manages her well-ordered career meticulously, always prepared on the air or interviewing world-renowned figures and heads of state. To her audience, Blaise seems to have it all. But privately, and off the set, there is another untold story she has kept hidden for years.

As president of a major pharmaceutical empire, Peter Haskell has everything. Power, position, a career, and a family, which mean everything to him, and for which he has sacrificed a great deal. Olivia Thatcher is the wife of a famous senator. She has given to her husband's ambitions and career until her soul is bone dry. She is trapped in a web of duty and obligation. Accidentally, on the night of a bomb threat, they meet in Paris, at the Ritz. Their totally different lives converge for one magical moment in the Place Vendôme, as Olivia silently, steps out of her life and walks away.

First Sight is a tale of daring to take risks, and losing control just enough to have a life, when the opportunity presents itself. When two very different worlds and strong-willed people collide, everything changes in an instant, as they confront the age-old question of whether to lay oneself bare and risk intimacy - or not. Are they brave enough to face what comes next? And will they do it together or apart?

Late 1930's Germany: Best friends Alex von Hemmerle and Nicolas von Bingen, titled childhood friends with neighboring estates, are witnessing the rise of Nazism when Nick's father reveals the long-buried secret of his son's partial Jewish ancestry. Warned by highly placed friends to flee, the only treasures Nick and his sons can take are two dazzling Lipizzaner horses, gifts from Alex. These powerful and majestic creatures become their ticket to a new life waiting across the ocean...