“Deception, murder, lies. Who can you trust?” – These are the lines that made me choose Undercover and introduced me to Danielle Steel. At 17, in a new school with new people, I didn’t have a lot of friends but picking up that book in the library just to keep myself busy ultimately introduced me to a friend that I take shelter with whenever I want reality to become an illusion.
Danielle Steel is the author of most of my comfort reads. Born in 1947, the 74-year old woman - an author of 190 books - is best known for her contemporary romance works. But that’s not all that her books contain. A Danielle Steel book is a mixture of picturesque locations, an enticing storyline, multiple characters with great depth, and sequences that will have your emotions rolling all over the place.
While most of her books primarily have a romantic setup, they also contain social prompts, suspense, the reality of struggles of everyday life, and family and friendships. The author, though a romance writer, has also written a book called Love Poems, which is a poetic collection that she wrote over the span of 15 years. Her book His Bright Light is the life story of her son, how he lost his life to manic depression, and how she and her family overcame it. She also has a biography based on her life named The Lives of Danielle Steel, written by Vickie L. Bane. The book sheds light on Steel’s private life and just how closely her work is related to all the events that have unfolded in her life Zoya, which is a story set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and the Depression, is still a fan favourite.
Steel wrote her first novel when she was 19, with the thought that if she sold even some copies of the book, she would be satisfied enough not to write again. Well, that didn’t clearly happen as the author is still one of America’s oldest, favourite, and bestselling authors. On her writing pattern, Steel comments that she spends about 20-22 hours a day typing on her favourite typewriter Ollie. “I want to die face first while typing a book,“ she said when asked about how she publishes about seven books per year on an average. She never thought she would be famous. For her, writing was a necessity that became a profession. But it was also the one thing that brought her back out of her misery after her son’s sudden death. “It was after my son died and my marriage ended that I thought maybe that was it for me as a writer. But this one time, I was in a car with my friend on an intersection in London, where we were almost hit by a bus as our driver was drunk. When it happened, my first thought was how good of a plot would this situation make. So, I went to my hotel and started writing again.”
Is she an altruistic legend or simply a mercenary? The author with a plethora of bestselling books, loyal readers, and hit new releases has evidently forged a legacy for herself. She is loved by her readers due to her ability to make her books an enticing illusion that temporarily transcends into a reality while piping a hot cup of coffee. She has always adapted to the new world in her books. In a Danielle Steel book, the world itself is a journey. It has emotions accompanied by suspense and suspicion, trust and deception, reality and illusion, and love that makes you swoon. The author has released six new books this year with the most recent, The Butler, having released on October 5, which is the story of a butler in a modern-day world. Flying Angels is set to release in November, which is set in 1941. It is based on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and how it affected the lives of two best friends Audrey and Lizzie, who lost their loved ones in the attack.
As she quotes, “Sometimes, if you aren’t sure about something, you just have to jump off the bridge and grow your wings on the way down.” A reader, writer, or a dreamer, we can only create our aspired reality with courage, belief, commitment, and love towards ourselves and our ambitions.
Comments