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Past Perfect: A Spellbinding Story Of An Unexpected Friendship Spanning A Century
Past Perfect [Paperback] Steel, Danielle
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2017
3815 people are currently reading
2953 people want to read
About the author
Danielle Steel
921 books17.1k followersDanielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's bestselling authors, with almost a billion copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include All That Glitters, Royal, Daddy's Girls, The Wedding Dress, The Numbers Game, Moral Compass, Spy, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Expect a Miracle, a book of her favorite quotations for inspiration and comfort; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children's books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.
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Instagram: @officialdaniellesteel
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 762 reviews
December 8, 2017
2.5*
I liked a little bit of it, but honestly it got strange when the ghosts showed up. It had some interesting aspects when they did but I just could not get as into this one as I do other Danielle Steel books, or even other paranormal genre books. On to the next Steel book for me!
I liked a little bit of it, but honestly it got strange when the ghosts showed up. It had some interesting aspects when they did but I just could not get as into this one as I do other Danielle Steel books, or even other paranormal genre books. On to the next Steel book for me!
October 19, 2025
2 stars! ⭐️⭐️
Good grief, I’m glad that’s over. Easily one of the worst DS books I’ve read. Ridiculous and repetitive.
I skimmed the last 50%.
October Book Club selection.
Good grief, I’m glad that’s over. Easily one of the worst DS books I’ve read. Ridiculous and repetitive.
I skimmed the last 50%.
October Book Club selection.
January 11, 2018
Well, I don't even know what this was. Whilst I must applaud Danielle Steel for getting out of her comfort zone, this made absolutely no sense whatsoever and I am still trying to get my head around it.
I don't want to label it as the worst Danielle Steel book I have ever read, but yeah.
I don't want to label it as the worst Danielle Steel book I have ever read, but yeah.
September 24, 2018
You need to suspend a fair bit of disbelief to enjoy this one and perhaps put your magical hat on! Otherwise an interesting paranormal/supernatural/historical offering from Danielle Steel. A light read that I whipped through in an evening.
*Book 's' of the a-z author challenge 2018.
*Book 's' of the a-z author challenge 2018.
December 5, 2017
This book started off great but once the ghosts came into the picture, I wasn’t sure what to make of it all. I’m not sure I believe in ghosts and I found myself questioning how this family from “Today” was actually conversing with a family from “100+ years ago.” I found that I kept skimming through some of the “ghost” talks but I kept reading. And even though I first thought “this is crazy” all of a sudden I found myself wanting to know more about 100 years ago. So I did enjoy this book overall. How could I not “love” another Danielle Steel book???
June 8, 2021
A serious ghost story, I could go for that. Danielle Steel could write a good one. But this was so incredibly shallow and frivolous. A whole family of ghosts just hanging out for fun with the living? And they all play dress up together? Because in eternity that's all people have to do with their time?
Listen, people say they don't "get" this book. But I get it plenty. It's consumerism and collecting carried to the logical extreme. What's the fantasy of buying a fancy mansion or antique silver or any of that crap? It's like cannibalism. If I eat a part of Albert Einstein's brain, then I'm a genius. If I buy a surfboard, I can be as sexy and rugged as Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. If I put on the Red Baron's flight helmet and goggles, then I'm an ace.
And if I buy a fancy old mansion, I'll be welcomed into the Smart Set. I get to become just as aristocratic as the ghosts who walk the halls!
Listen, people say they don't "get" this book. But I get it plenty. It's consumerism and collecting carried to the logical extreme. What's the fantasy of buying a fancy mansion or antique silver or any of that crap? It's like cannibalism. If I eat a part of Albert Einstein's brain, then I'm a genius. If I buy a surfboard, I can be as sexy and rugged as Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. If I put on the Red Baron's flight helmet and goggles, then I'm an ace.
And if I buy a fancy old mansion, I'll be welcomed into the Smart Set. I get to become just as aristocratic as the ghosts who walk the halls!
December 8, 2017
Ridiculous, even by Danielle Steele standards
Each time I pick up a Danielle Steele book, usually to be read while passing time in an airport, I ask myself why I waste my money. This book hit a new low.
Sybil and Blake Gregory, with their three children, live in a four bedroom Tribeca apartment. When Blake is offered the job of a lifetime at a San Francisco startup, he convinces Sybil to uproot the family and quickly move to the west coast for at least two years.
While searching for an appropriate four bedroom rental, he happens upon a 22,000 square foot boarded up mansion on one acre of land in Pacific Heights. For reasons that make sense only to Danielle Steele, the bank that owns the house sells it to Blake for a song.
Blake is unaware that the mansion is occupied by the ghosts of the entire Butterfield family, who are “living” 100 years prior. The two families become fast friends, dining in splendor most nights. Everyone, including two college aged children, dons formal dress for dinner, which magically appears on the formal banquet table.
As time passes, past and present intersect. The Gregory family adapts to the lifestyle of the 1917 rich and famous, while members of the Butterfield clan become computer literate.
The couple hired to keep house wonder if they have entered the twilight zone because they hear the Gregorys constantly talking to themselves. I am in some sort of zone myself. Do the housekeepers see the formal dining table with its elaborate place settings for a large party almost nightly? Who cooks the multi-course spreads?
More perplexing to me than the ghosts are more practical matters, such as the math. One acre of prime land in San Francisco - priceless. A vacant 22,000 foot mansion that needs only a coat of paint and updated upholstery fabrics - highly improbable. Buying kitchen appliances and utensils at IKEA - bizarre. People who own a large Tribeca apartment and a San Francisco mansion would be more inclined to shop for a Subzero and Wolff at a luxury appliance store and buy kitchen and dining supplies at Williams Sonoma.
And imagine convincing college kids to dress in tuxedos and gowns for dinner, much less putting a harried husband in tails! Yes, books are intended to entertain, but Danielle Steele expected this reader to suspend all credulity.
The writing style is unique to Danielle Steele. Run-on sentences, repetition, inconsistencies and minutiae that do not advance the story - only Danielle Steele gets away with such shoddy writing.
The book, which I read in two hours, was a waste of time and money but it was preferable to staring into space while I waited for my connecting flight.
Each time I pick up a Danielle Steele book, usually to be read while passing time in an airport, I ask myself why I waste my money. This book hit a new low.
Sybil and Blake Gregory, with their three children, live in a four bedroom Tribeca apartment. When Blake is offered the job of a lifetime at a San Francisco startup, he convinces Sybil to uproot the family and quickly move to the west coast for at least two years.
While searching for an appropriate four bedroom rental, he happens upon a 22,000 square foot boarded up mansion on one acre of land in Pacific Heights. For reasons that make sense only to Danielle Steele, the bank that owns the house sells it to Blake for a song.
Blake is unaware that the mansion is occupied by the ghosts of the entire Butterfield family, who are “living” 100 years prior. The two families become fast friends, dining in splendor most nights. Everyone, including two college aged children, dons formal dress for dinner, which magically appears on the formal banquet table.
As time passes, past and present intersect. The Gregory family adapts to the lifestyle of the 1917 rich and famous, while members of the Butterfield clan become computer literate.
The couple hired to keep house wonder if they have entered the twilight zone because they hear the Gregorys constantly talking to themselves. I am in some sort of zone myself. Do the housekeepers see the formal dining table with its elaborate place settings for a large party almost nightly? Who cooks the multi-course spreads?
More perplexing to me than the ghosts are more practical matters, such as the math. One acre of prime land in San Francisco - priceless. A vacant 22,000 foot mansion that needs only a coat of paint and updated upholstery fabrics - highly improbable. Buying kitchen appliances and utensils at IKEA - bizarre. People who own a large Tribeca apartment and a San Francisco mansion would be more inclined to shop for a Subzero and Wolff at a luxury appliance store and buy kitchen and dining supplies at Williams Sonoma.
And imagine convincing college kids to dress in tuxedos and gowns for dinner, much less putting a harried husband in tails! Yes, books are intended to entertain, but Danielle Steele expected this reader to suspend all credulity.
The writing style is unique to Danielle Steele. Run-on sentences, repetition, inconsistencies and minutiae that do not advance the story - only Danielle Steele gets away with such shoddy writing.
The book, which I read in two hours, was a waste of time and money but it was preferable to staring into space while I waited for my connecting flight.
November 29, 2017
Well, this is weird....
I like it!
I think you may too. Families from 1917 and 2017 somehow meet and become friends after the younger clan purchases the elder's home in San Francisco. The house had been cherished by its original owners. After the new ones obtain and reposition much of the 19th century fittings and furniture, the spirits appear and new friendships span a century.
Though this is a love story, it involves the love of family and friends in addition to romance. Anyone merely in the mood for 'mush' may be disappointed.
I, however, found this to be an engaging and heartwarming novel.
I like it!
I think you may too. Families from 1917 and 2017 somehow meet and become friends after the younger clan purchases the elder's home in San Francisco. The house had been cherished by its original owners. After the new ones obtain and reposition much of the 19th century fittings and furniture, the spirits appear and new friendships span a century.
Though this is a love story, it involves the love of family and friends in addition to romance. Anyone merely in the mood for 'mush' may be disappointed.
I, however, found this to be an engaging and heartwarming novel.
February 8, 2018
After first being turned off by snobism, classism and racism, Ms. Steele manages to find her stroke when she stops writing about these, "isms," to instead, focus on the story. Initially, I thought this may warrant a 1-star However, Ms. Steel found her form in the second half, save for one underdeveloped and underutilized female character and missed the opportunity. 6 fo 10 stars
December 17, 2017
Think this is my first one-star review--and to the latest book by an author with over 650 MILLION readers. Does not really make sense.
On top of this, the book involves a time warp/ghost element, with people from the present and the past intermingling--concepts I like. And the past time period is one my favorites: the 1910s and the WWI era. Not to mention a beautiful old mansion is involved.
And a novel about a storied old San Francisco mansion is a natural for Danielle Steel who has long owned the storied Sprekels Mansion in San Francisco.
However, talk about your flat, lifeless collection of pages, for that is what you have in this book.
Check out these opening sentences of two different books:
Sample A:
"Those who can, do.
Those who can't, deejay.
Like Cooper van Epp. Standing in his room--the entire fifth floor of a Hicks Street brownstone--trying to beat-match John Lee Hooker with some piece of trip-hop horror. On twenty thousand dollars' worth of equipment he doesn't know how to use."
Sample B:
"Blake Gregory sat looking out his office window in New York, pondering the offer he had just been made to be the CEO of a new high-tech social media start-up in San Francisco. He'd had other offers before, in Boston and other cities, though none as enticing as this one, and he'd turned them down without hesitation."
Sample B is by our 650 million reader author. Sample A, by Jennifer Donnelly author of a young adult novel about the French Revolution called Revolution.
So strange, while both books involve a story and people in the past, intermingled with a story and people in the present--and both even involve young boys in the past who are killed, and a corresponding young boy in the present--Donnelly's book is SOOO much more ALIVE than Danielle's.
In addition to the flat characters, the bland--barely existent description, the sentences that can meander confusingly--its also not quite clear what Steel is going for in her time warp element.
Steel includes an introductory page where she explains that time travel books never appealed to her, they seemed too "far-fetched." Also, she was frustrated by the person sent back in time having to decide whether to abandon everything and everyone she knows and loves in her present life, or leave behind her true love in the past.
Well, Steel "solves" this problem for herself by not having any present day people actually travel to the past; instead she has a family of ghosts that had lived circa 1917, appear to the present day family.
But then she makes these ghosts zombie-ghosts--in that they don't completely know they are dead. Because deaths happen to the ghosts, and there is much sorrow and pain, but then the dead reappear a short time later--and the family is not surprised because they knew the person could reappear. And even though the six year old boy who had died in 1905 is with the family in 1917, the family acts as if death is a real thing.
These poor ghosts have some other problems that make Steel's after life not very attractive--they still have to have sicknesses--and childbirth!--the 1917 way!
Perhaps what Steel thinks she is doing is creating a time warp wherein the present day family stumbles upon the 1917 family and then the two sets of lives sort of meld as each family lives its life in its own time. If this were the model, the deaths in the past, and the pain felt surrounding them, would make sense. And of course sickness and childbirth would have to be experienced as experienced in 1917.
Steel strengthens the time warp idea by having a whole world out there in the past for the ghost people to travel in. The oldest daughter moves to France, for example.
But the time warp model can not be claimed to be used here, since we've got the six year old boy who died twelve years earlier as part of the mix. Not to mention that the daughter who will die at 20 around 1929, is 20, rather than 8, when with her family in 1917.
We also have the ghost family recognizing that those who have died are now different, though only in that they can not be photographed.
Of course, an author creating time warps has pretty free rein, as there is no objective standard as to how an imaginary time warp needs to be. There is, however, an objective standard as to how realistic people will act and think. And the Butterfields do not act like real people living in a parallel time. For example, real people would recognize the strangeness of dead family members returning and then being frozen at the age they died. Similarly, real people would remember that there is no death in their world so why fret about death--or anything for that matter--because if the worst that could happen to them is death and that doesn't exist, why worry about anything? Further, they might be a bit depressed, these real Butterfields, in that there seems to be nothing after life except to return to the world frozen at the age one died.
And of course, an author has freedom in creating characters any way she pleases. Yet if fictional humans don't ring true, most books will not be read. This situation is obviously a bit different; Steel has the ability to pretty much type out anything, put a title and her name on it, and it will be a best seller.
In sum: It appears that Steel wants to have created a parallel time--our world 100 years in the past--that happens to intersect via a time warp with our present when the Butterfields and Gregorys meet.
What she has actually created is a family of ghosts who act and think like they are not ghosts (which fits her time warp idea)--forgetting that when they die they will return, for example, and suffering and dying like non-ghosts; but they actually are ghosts or they wouldn't be able to come back to life or be stuck forever at the age they were when they died.
On top of this, the book involves a time warp/ghost element, with people from the present and the past intermingling--concepts I like. And the past time period is one my favorites: the 1910s and the WWI era. Not to mention a beautiful old mansion is involved.
And a novel about a storied old San Francisco mansion is a natural for Danielle Steel who has long owned the storied Sprekels Mansion in San Francisco.
However, talk about your flat, lifeless collection of pages, for that is what you have in this book.
Check out these opening sentences of two different books:
Sample A:
"Those who can, do.
Those who can't, deejay.
Like Cooper van Epp. Standing in his room--the entire fifth floor of a Hicks Street brownstone--trying to beat-match John Lee Hooker with some piece of trip-hop horror. On twenty thousand dollars' worth of equipment he doesn't know how to use."
Sample B:
"Blake Gregory sat looking out his office window in New York, pondering the offer he had just been made to be the CEO of a new high-tech social media start-up in San Francisco. He'd had other offers before, in Boston and other cities, though none as enticing as this one, and he'd turned them down without hesitation."
Sample B is by our 650 million reader author. Sample A, by Jennifer Donnelly author of a young adult novel about the French Revolution called Revolution.
So strange, while both books involve a story and people in the past, intermingled with a story and people in the present--and both even involve young boys in the past who are killed, and a corresponding young boy in the present--Donnelly's book is SOOO much more ALIVE than Danielle's.
In addition to the flat characters, the bland--barely existent description, the sentences that can meander confusingly--its also not quite clear what Steel is going for in her time warp element.
Steel includes an introductory page where she explains that time travel books never appealed to her, they seemed too "far-fetched." Also, she was frustrated by the person sent back in time having to decide whether to abandon everything and everyone she knows and loves in her present life, or leave behind her true love in the past.
Well, Steel "solves" this problem for herself by not having any present day people actually travel to the past; instead she has a family of ghosts that had lived circa 1917, appear to the present day family.
But then she makes these ghosts zombie-ghosts--in that they don't completely know they are dead. Because deaths happen to the ghosts, and there is much sorrow and pain, but then the dead reappear a short time later--and the family is not surprised because they knew the person could reappear. And even though the six year old boy who had died in 1905 is with the family in 1917, the family acts as if death is a real thing.
These poor ghosts have some other problems that make Steel's after life not very attractive--they still have to have sicknesses--and childbirth!--the 1917 way!
Perhaps what Steel thinks she is doing is creating a time warp wherein the present day family stumbles upon the 1917 family and then the two sets of lives sort of meld as each family lives its life in its own time. If this were the model, the deaths in the past, and the pain felt surrounding them, would make sense. And of course sickness and childbirth would have to be experienced as experienced in 1917.
Steel strengthens the time warp idea by having a whole world out there in the past for the ghost people to travel in. The oldest daughter moves to France, for example.
But the time warp model can not be claimed to be used here, since we've got the six year old boy who died twelve years earlier as part of the mix. Not to mention that the daughter who will die at 20 around 1929, is 20, rather than 8, when with her family in 1917.
We also have the ghost family recognizing that those who have died are now different, though only in that they can not be photographed.
Of course, an author creating time warps has pretty free rein, as there is no objective standard as to how an imaginary time warp needs to be. There is, however, an objective standard as to how realistic people will act and think. And the Butterfields do not act like real people living in a parallel time. For example, real people would recognize the strangeness of dead family members returning and then being frozen at the age they died. Similarly, real people would remember that there is no death in their world so why fret about death--or anything for that matter--because if the worst that could happen to them is death and that doesn't exist, why worry about anything? Further, they might be a bit depressed, these real Butterfields, in that there seems to be nothing after life except to return to the world frozen at the age one died.
And of course, an author has freedom in creating characters any way she pleases. Yet if fictional humans don't ring true, most books will not be read. This situation is obviously a bit different; Steel has the ability to pretty much type out anything, put a title and her name on it, and it will be a best seller.
In sum: It appears that Steel wants to have created a parallel time--our world 100 years in the past--that happens to intersect via a time warp with our present when the Butterfields and Gregorys meet.
What she has actually created is a family of ghosts who act and think like they are not ghosts (which fits her time warp idea)--forgetting that when they die they will return, for example, and suffering and dying like non-ghosts; but they actually are ghosts or they wouldn't be able to come back to life or be stuck forever at the age they were when they died.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2018
I wish I could give this a zero. I love Danielle Steel. I've read everything she's written. This was disappointing. The whole thing was ridiculous. I finished it only because I didn't want to end my streak with her books.
December 13, 2017
A bit of a stretch in believeability; however, the story was endearing and shows how the importance of family is priceless and timeless. Just OK for me -- 4 out of 10.
January 5, 2018
This is not a typical Danielle Steel book. This book deals with ghosts. A family , the Gregory's, move cross country and buy a historical mansion. They find it is inhabited by a family of ghosts , the Butterfields, from 100 years ago. These ghosts are very friendly and can only be seen by the the Gregory family. This book follows the interaction between both families. It was a fun and interesting read and a reminder not all ghosts are unfriendly.
February 16, 2020
Bij dit verhaal moet je niet te veel nadenken - ik vroeg mij nl. bij elk diner van de combi groep af of ze ook echt voedsel binnen kregen .. en zo waren er wel meer dingen die naar mijn gevoel niet klopten maar er te veel over nadenken levert alleen maar een fikse hoofdpijn op : ) - dus .. gewoon genieten van het verhaal over een warme vriendschap die ontstaat tussen de levenden en de spoken .
April 25, 2021
Mon premier Roman lu en 2021 ♥️
J’ai adoré le personnage de Sybille la maman adorable de trois enfants, la bonne épouse compréhensive et une commissaire d’exposition des musées talentueuse , elle adore sa famille et son travail elle a sacrifié de son travail à New York et elle déménagé à San Francisco avec ses enfants pour la nouvelle entreprise créée par son mari , Ce dernier a acheté un manoir d’une famille célèbre qui avait occupée le manoir ça fait de longues années, On dirait un siècle ... Oui Un siècle exactement cent ans plus tôt une ancienne famille trop riche et connus dans la société des nobles.
La surprise c’est que la famille est toujours présente dans le manoir ses fantômes est toujours là, et ils ont rencontré les nouveaux occupants la Famille de Sybille ... et Voilà une belle histoire commence entre le passé et le présent ... la réalité et l’imagination ... Fantômes et personnes vivants ... Souvenirs ... Rêves... Histoire d’amour et d’amitié... Tous Ça dans une seule place
( Le manoir De Butterfield ).
Un siècle séparait les deux familles, mais celle-ci partageaient leur quotidien dans une faille temporelle de 100 ans !
Comme l’habitude de Danielle Steel une belle fin heureuse pour tous le monde 🌎
J’ai adoré le personnage de Sybille la maman adorable de trois enfants, la bonne épouse compréhensive et une commissaire d’exposition des musées talentueuse , elle adore sa famille et son travail elle a sacrifié de son travail à New York et elle déménagé à San Francisco avec ses enfants pour la nouvelle entreprise créée par son mari , Ce dernier a acheté un manoir d’une famille célèbre qui avait occupée le manoir ça fait de longues années, On dirait un siècle ... Oui Un siècle exactement cent ans plus tôt une ancienne famille trop riche et connus dans la société des nobles.
La surprise c’est que la famille est toujours présente dans le manoir ses fantômes est toujours là, et ils ont rencontré les nouveaux occupants la Famille de Sybille ... et Voilà une belle histoire commence entre le passé et le présent ... la réalité et l’imagination ... Fantômes et personnes vivants ... Souvenirs ... Rêves... Histoire d’amour et d’amitié... Tous Ça dans une seule place
( Le manoir De Butterfield ).
Un siècle séparait les deux familles, mais celle-ci partageaient leur quotidien dans une faille temporelle de 100 ans !
Comme l’habitude de Danielle Steel une belle fin heureuse pour tous le monde 🌎
February 7, 2018
A slice-of-life novel about two families living 100 years apart side by side.
As a ghost story, this was not very engaging, Steel admits herself that she doesn't like conventional time travel stories and so tries to put a personal spin on it by using ghosts, however, it just comes across confusing and unnecessary because, evidently, she doesn't know much about or really care for ghost stories either. This book really should have just been about the Butterfield's, the Gregory's did little to nothing for the story. With less little encounters between the two families, this book could have focused more on character development and growth instead of being a synopsis about a family's history across generations. I mean, there was more focus on Gwen making .jpgs on the computer than her son dying in the war. Huge oversight there.
I understand what Steel was trying to do with two families from different time periods learning from each other, but, in the end, that hardly ever happened. Overall, there was no conflict or climax to this story at all, everything just worked out easily for all of the two-dimensional characters, making it a rather dull read.
As a ghost story, this was not very engaging, Steel admits herself that she doesn't like conventional time travel stories and so tries to put a personal spin on it by using ghosts, however, it just comes across confusing and unnecessary because, evidently, she doesn't know much about or really care for ghost stories either. This book really should have just been about the Butterfield's, the Gregory's did little to nothing for the story. With less little encounters between the two families, this book could have focused more on character development and growth instead of being a synopsis about a family's history across generations. I mean, there was more focus on Gwen making .jpgs on the computer than her son dying in the war. Huge oversight there.
I understand what Steel was trying to do with two families from different time periods learning from each other, but, in the end, that hardly ever happened. Overall, there was no conflict or climax to this story at all, everything just worked out easily for all of the two-dimensional characters, making it a rather dull read.
May 29, 2025
in this book Danielle Steele tells us that she doesn't like stories like this one with time travel and ghosts. I have to say though that even though she wrote outside of her normal realm this book is another Danielle Steele success!!!!!! I loved this book and the characters in it. I didn't want it to end and read it in one day. I had to make myself put it down. will highly recommend this book!!!!!
January 6, 2020
It was a sweet story mixed with another dimension. Its a happy read.. 😀
December 20, 2017
Unusual for Danielle Steel but so well crafted. This is the type of ghost family I would like to meet!
Loved the characters and the setting, besides I had an Irish mother who believed in friendly ghosts who liked to stay in favorite places! She believed we had one that came back only at Christmas!
Loved the characters and the setting, besides I had an Irish mother who believed in friendly ghosts who liked to stay in favorite places! She believed we had one that came back only at Christmas!
August 5, 2018
I absolutely loved this book. Very different for Danielle Steele but I found the whole story line intriguing..
December 26, 2017
I was willing to suspend disbelief to enjoy this book because I do enjoy the occasional ghost story. And the idea of a modern day family living with a ghost family sounded kind of fun! This book was beyond ridiculous. The ghost grandma chokes on a piece of lamb and the 2017 woman gives the ghost the Heimlich maneuver? Ghosts having babies? Why didn't the ghost family want to know about their future? Did the families eat ghost food or living person food? So many questions. I gave this book two stars because I did love the ending. I would love to be able to meet my ancestors, so this ending brought the rating up from one star. I can't think of anyone I'd suggest this book to.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2018
Trust Danielle Steel to write a haunted house story where the living people get along and live harmoniously with the ghosts, it’s classic cute and innocent Steel.
On the whole I did enjoy this novel, the 3rd act started to get a little convoluted with characters and events, but mostly it was a fun read.
On the whole I did enjoy this novel, the 3rd act started to get a little convoluted with characters and events, but mostly it was a fun read.
December 6, 2017
I really really enjoyed this book.
A New York family buys a house in San Francisco, and finds out the family that lived there 100 years before are living there as ghosts.
This begins a beautiful friendship and we follow both families for many years.
A New York family buys a house in San Francisco, and finds out the family that lived there 100 years before are living there as ghosts.
This begins a beautiful friendship and we follow both families for many years.
December 23, 2017
Totally ridiculous! I understand that she is probably run out of ideas because so many books every year, but this, sorry Danielle, I expected better from you! I don't want to write anything more so I don't give away the story to others who might actually be reading the book write now.
December 9, 2017
I think this is the lowest rating I’ve ever given a DS book. A little out of the normal for her, as in paranormal, and it just didn’t do it for me.
November 26, 2025
Va pour 2, parce que même si c'était pas passionnant c'était pas chiant à lire non plus.
Je me répète encore, mais je trouve que tout le monde est beaucoup trop calme à l'idée de voir et de côtoyer des fantômes.
Je m'attendais à plus d'événements négatifs mais en fin de compte tout se passe bien (en dehors des événements historiques chez les fantômes)
Et Sybil féministe mais pas trop non, elle m'a vite gonflé.
Limite j'aurais préféré juste un livre sur l'histoire des fantômes. La famille moderne apporte rien à l'histoire.
Je me répète encore, mais je trouve que tout le monde est beaucoup trop calme à l'idée de voir et de côtoyer des fantômes.
Je m'attendais à plus d'événements négatifs mais en fin de compte tout se passe bien (en dehors des événements historiques chez les fantômes)
Et Sybil féministe mais pas trop non, elle m'a vite gonflé.
Limite j'aurais préféré juste un livre sur l'histoire des fantômes. La famille moderne apporte rien à l'histoire.
April 18, 2018
What would it feel like to live in a house that was inhabited with the original owners, even though they lived there 100 years ago. Sybil and Blake purchase a home that is owned by the bank that is a mansion and three days later they begin to see people that look like the portraits that are on the walls.
January 4, 2023
One of my favorite Danielle Steel books! It was very different, but very good!
December 9, 2017
This book just didn’t do a lot for me. I found it to be a slow read and a bit predictable, which is a shame, because typically, I enjoy paranormal topics.
January 30, 2019
My friend Laura lent me this book as she said it was a nice and light read. I really enjoyed it, but found it a little weird having real life people associating with ghosts (even though it’s just a story). But I really enjoyed the dynamics of the relationships in the books and how certain situations can test relationships. I highly recommend as I couldn’t put the book down!
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