Maintenant et pour toujours

by Danielle Steel

Le jour où son mari est arrêté, accusé d'un crime odieux, la vie bien tranquille de Jessica Clarke bascule. Prise dans les rouages de la machine judiciaire américaine, elle va devoir faire face à un procès qui menace de détruire tout ce en quoi elle a toujours cru. En proie aux soucis d'argent, à la honte et aux doutes, Jessica est confrontée au plus difficile des choix.

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Contemporary Romance, Drama, Novels

504 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Danielle 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.

Facebook.com/DanielleSteelOfficial
Instagram: @officialdaniellesteel

Reviews

[Janice Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this many years ago, in the late 1970s, when I was still a teenager. It's the only Danielle Steel novel I've ever read, as she is not my cup of tea.

Okay, so do I think it's a good book? No, but then I don't think I'd think any novel of Danielle Steel's is good.

My purpose in writing this review is twofold: First, I knew before looking that this novel would get some negative reviews, and get some panties all in a wad, because "There's no excuse for cheating" and "They didn't really love each other because he cheated." I get so impatient with this attitude. Monogamy is unnatural and people have to work at it to achieve it. To fail to be perfect at it is an understandable, and should be forgivable, mistake. And yes, people who love their spouses and significant others can and do cheat on them. Sex doesn't always correlate with love. I feel that some people get so emotional about infidelity that they will diss any book that fails to treat it as THE Cardinal Sin That Will Send You To Hell. It's annoying.

Now that said, I will speak about what does bother me about this book. It's the false rape allegation and the fact that Ian is actually found guilty of, and sent to prison for, a rape he did not commit. In real life, false rape allegations are rare. In real life, a tiny percentage of men who really do commit rape ever see the inside of a jail cell. In real life, women who make rape allegations are treated so poorly that the majority of women who are raped choose not to even make the allegation. In real life, rape convictions are very difficult to get when the accused is guilty, let alone when he's innocent.

So we are to find it believable that a woman makes a false allegation and that this false allegation actually results in a conviction? Possible, I suppose, but highly unlikely.

Okay, so this was published in 1974. Times have changed. We are now speaking openly about and acknowledging what I've typed here. I guess what I'm saying is that I think this book is an insult to all rape victims. It feeds into the idea that some people, mostly men, have, that a rape victim is lying and out to get the poor guy and that if she doesn't have a videotape of her assault then she has "no corroboration" and jeez the poor guy. Look what Christine Ford went through. It's a disgusting attitude and this book panders to it.

That's why I hate this book.

[J Jahir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Éste también es otro de esos libros de danielle steel engañosos. parece que todo marcha bien, pero nuevamente ella nos da un giro. esta vez conoceremos a Jessie e Ian, que llevaban 7 años de matrimonio. De pronto, parecía que todo iba color de rosa, pero una mujer desconocida lo acusa de haberla violado. Ian se ganaba la vida como escritor, y Jessica tenía una herencia y dirigía una boutique. esa situación se convierte en un golpe para ella, y tiene que aprender a salir adelante por sí misma.
Van varios libros de ella en donde me encuentro con un posible romance y digo: se va a quedar con él. Además que Geoffrey no terminaba de convencerme mucho .
es una novela entretenida, no exageradamente dramática, pero sigo agradeciendo que no tenga una temática rosa.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story where I had a hard time putting the book down.

She still hashes and rehashes some of the scenes in the book (although she does add some extra plot) and I find this tiresome.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

[January · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was awesome! One of my favorites of DS! It is about a women who is happily married...or so she thought. Her husband cheats on her while out of town and the women accuses him of rape and he is put in prison. It is a wonderful story of love, hurt and betrayl...I loved it!

[Alison Edwards · Rating 1 out of 5]

wow. I know this was from the 70's but it amazed me at how horrid the main characters were. This book did not hold up over time.

[Pratima Das · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a character named Ian Clarke who doesn't really have a job, he is a writer. He is accused of rape and assault, by this lady named Maggie. Ian's wife Jessica finds out about this, she loves him with all her heart, and trusts him and she knows that he is innocent.Ian is sent to jail and has to stay there for many years.

Jessica in her heart knows that he didn't do anything, but circumstances make her believe what is in front of her eyes. She gives him divorce and moves to her country house and tries to start a new life. There in the other side in jail Ian writes a book and sells it and gets a lot of money from it and he pays back Jessica everything.


Jessica is trying to meet new guys and is trying to forget Ian as hard as possible. She goes on a date with a guy, and he proposes her and he takes her home to make love with her,she stops him and realizes that this is all wrong and she misses Ian. She wants him back desperately.

She goes back to the jail and sees Ian after years. They both realize how much they love each other and how hard it is to live without each other. Eight weeks after that Ian is released from jail, and Jessica finally gets him back. :)

[Bookreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was such a let down! I couldnt believe the story line. A handsome guy is only 10 hours away from meeting his beautiful wife whom he 'loves' from the bottom of his heart. And he cheats on her? God. To top it all, his wife is understanding. Damn! Nothing can justify cheating and her being casual about it is so unacceptable. The rest of the story was too cliched and boring. And all too predictable. I did not enjoy the book and i just wanted to finish it for the heck of it. I dont even think this should be featured in Goodreads..

[Jena]

Self note:
The h financially supports her husband/H.
H cheats on the h/wife, and the woman accuses him of rape, and he gets sent to jail for few years.
The doormat, also known as heroines in romance novels, stands by him.
Couldnt even sleep with the om.

[Sofia · Rating 3 out of 5]

No llega a 4, pero bastante bien la señora steel. Próximamente reseña.

[Amanda Zaccaro · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did not stand up to the test of time. It was awful reading it in 2023 when it was released in 1978. So many things have changed and the treatment of the subject of rape was terrible. The characters weren’t overly complex and you wanted them to grow up. None of them were particularly likable.

[Jpalasak · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment from one of my favorite authors. I wanted to keep kicking the heroine in the butt. How naive can she be??

[Alex (Alex's Version) · Rating 1 out of 5]

OMG! this book didn't age well.

[Cindy]

Most disappointing DS title I've read to date.Although the reader eventually intuits the rationale (He felt demasculinized by her financing everything,not wanting kids)for his infidelities (plural) is never truly discussed between the two of them ..No confrontation ,no blow up, little anger....No biggie!
The motivation for pinning a crime on an innocent man? This crazed woman,abused in her past is out for Revenge gets him convicted of rape,sodomy and another charge r\t oral!

[Chrisangel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the second Danielle Steel book I read, hoping it'd be better than "The Promise"....and I can only say that it wasn't any worse.

The marriage of Jessica and Ian Clarke was hardly one made in Heaven; even for Earth, it was still a bad bargain. Jessica was a needy, clingy control freak who was also insecure and frightened, due to losing her parents in an accident. She became paranoid that she'd lose Ian too and so she kept a stranglehold on him, in the guise of love. She encouraged him to quit his advertising job to be a full time writer, claiming she wanted him to live his dream, but really so he'd be at home all the time and she wouldn't have to worry about him getting hit by a car on the way to work, or some such thing. She owned a boutique and made good money, so there was no financial problem, but she acted more like a 19thc man, who felt Ian's place was at home, like a good little househusband. She refused to have a baby, because she didn't want to share Ian's love and was forever whining about how she's so scared, she loves him so much, she doesn't want to lose him, on and on ad nauseum. She sucked all the oxygen out of the air, so it's not surprising he needed to escape so he could breathe.

Not that he was without fault, far from it. He claims to not be happy about Jessica supporting him while he tries to write (and what nitwit writes a book of fables and expects it to be a best seller?) yet he doesn't do anything to change the situation, except talk about what he wants, like a baby. But when she gets all whiny and clingy again he gives up and goes back to his not-so-creative writing.
His way of breaking free from his prison of a marriage is to have casual sex now and then, strictly for fun, then makes the mistake of having fun with the wrong woman, who accuses him of rape. He's found guilty and goes to prison.

(I didn't appreciate this way of separating them, Ms. Steel could have done better. False accusations are not entertaining reading, as when they happen in real life, they do irreparable damage to the man accused, as well as make it all the more difficult for women who really are assaulted to be believed. Anyone who makes false accusations deserves to be in jail for a very long time.)

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now. The story goes on to have Jessica change (thank you God) into a better person, less neurotic and selfish, more secure and confident. She moves on with her life, and meets a man who really cares for her, which would have been a great way to end the story. Ian should have gotten out of jail, met with Jessica, talked about how their lives are going (like the book he wrote, the guy had to be locked up before he showed any literary talent), happy that they're both better people, and then gone their separate ways. If this was a regular novel, that could have happened, but because this is a romance, there must be a HEA, however improbable.

Therefore, Jessica, about to make love to her new man, suddenly can't go through with it, because she realizes she still loves Ian! (Oh, come on! She had to get naked with the guy before she figured that out? Maybe she just didn't like the size of him?) Talk about ridiculous, she was doing fine without Ian all this time, so let's not insult the reader's intelligence. Next thing you know, she visits Ian in jail, where she finds him making out with his cellmate (just kidding, though that would have made things more interesting) where they pour out their hearts (and I poured out my stomach contents) and the next thing you know, he's home!

After reading this, I vowed, to "Now and Forever", stay away from Danielle Steel books.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review was written in that dim corridor of days between the 22nd and 28th of October, 2025 — a week blurred by the hiss of oxygen and the slow drip of IV lines at Bellona Nursing Home & Diagnostic Centre Pvt. Ltd. I was then a reluctant guest of illness, recovering from an infection that had seized both lungs and kidneys. Forgive, therefore, the infrequent tremor in my language; it bears the soft delirium of painkillers and the fragile clarity of a mind half-dreaming between fever and thought.

*Now and Forever* opens with an illusion of stability: Jessica and Ian Clarke, a perfect marriage in a perfect house, radiant as a toothpaste ad. Steel’s brilliance lies in how she introduces the rupture—not as a sudden catastrophe, but as a slow leak in the architecture of love. When Ian commits an impulsive act that sends him to prison, the novel shifts from domestic bliss to existential exile. Reading it between beeps and drips, I realised Steel wasn’t writing a romance; she was conducting an autopsy of faith.

What happens when love is stripped of its visible scaffolding—sex, proximity, touch—and left only with time? Jessica’s devotion becomes an experiment in absence, in Derrida’s sense of the *supplement*: she keeps loving him not because he’s there, but precisely because he isn’t.

The act of waiting becomes her identity. Steel, perhaps unknowingly, writes a Kristevan meditation on abjection—the woman who maintains form as everything else decays.

The hospital light at 3 a.m. had the same metallic chill as Steel’s prose. I read Jessica’s letters to Ian as if they were IV fluids, feeding a body no longer responsive. The language of care mirrors the language of survival: *“You must be strong,”* she writes, as though repetition could substitute for hope. Each sentence is a ritual act against entropy.

What moves me most is Steel’s refusal to moralise Ian’s fall. Instead, she dissects the banality of error—how one bad impulse can unravel the whole text of a life. There’s a quiet Barthesian irony here: the narrative’s meaning isn’t in what happens, but in how the lovers narrate it afterward. Their love becomes a text rewritten through guilt, forgiveness, and fatigue. Barthes might call it the *death of the lover*—when desire turns from the other’s body to the other’s memory.

Steel’s craft in *Now and Forever* is deceptively plain. Her sentences are stripped down, even mechanical, but within that simplicity hides an almost clinical rhythm—the heartbeat of someone watching love decompose molecule by molecule. By the time Ian returns, both have changed. The novel pretends to restore equilibrium, but what’s really restored is awareness: the knowledge that permanence is a myth.

I remember pausing at a line—“You never really go back; you only go forward into a different version of what was.” That sentence pulsed in my skull like a mantra. Illness does the same: it steals the illusion of continuity and replaces it with a new body that carries the old one’s ghosts. Steel’s title, *Now and Forever*, sounds romantic, but the text itself knows better. The “forever” part is just “now”, endlessly rewritten.

Jessica’s loyalty can feel suffocating, almost pathological, but therein lies Steel’s early critique of feminine endurance. She sketches a portrait of the woman as the keeper of emotional infrastructure, condemned to maintain love even when it has turned into ruin. Kristeva would call it the maternal semiotic—fluid, sustaining, irrational. Jessica becomes a kind of modern Madonna, performing devotion in the face of systemic betrayal.

And yet, Steel doesn’t idealise her. Beneath Jessica’s resilience lurks exhaustion. The narrative voice occasionally trembles with resentment, that unspoken ache of being needed but unseen. Reading it under sedation, I could feel that fatigue settling in my own limbs—the ache of constant vigilance, the performance of wellness. It struck me that Steel, writing in the late ’70s, intuited something our postmodern theories would later diagnose: love as labour.

There’s an extraordinary irony in how *Now and Forever* was marketed as a conventional romance. Beneath its glossy cover beats the heart of an existential fable. Ian’s prison sentence is both literal and metaphoric—the confinement of the masculine ego within its own fragility.

Jessica’s endurance is the mirror to that imprisonment: the confinement of the feminine ideal within grace. Both are trapped in performative scripts that no longer fit.

At one point, Jessica muses that “love means never giving up.” The line, dangerously close to cliché, transforms under scrutiny. Never giving up on *what*? The person, the memory, or the performance of love itself? The question lingers like the aftertaste of morphine—sweet, numbing, circular. Steel’s prose, often dismissed as sentimental, conceals this recursive unease: love as repetition compulsion, the refusal to end even when the ending has arrived.

As the novel closed, I caught myself rereading the first chapter, tracing the symmetry between beginning and end. The same house, the same promise, the same couple—but everything contaminated by time. It reminded me of Derrida’s obsession with *iterability*: how repetition always alters the original. The phrase “now and forever” is, in that sense, self-cancelling. “Forever” only exists as a succession of “nows”, each undoing the last.

From the hospital window, dawn broke in that pale, antiseptic way cities wake—without ceremony. I thought of Jessica making breakfast alone, her hands still rehearsing love’s choreography even after its music had faded. Steel’s genius lies in making that image linger: the woman as both saint and survivor, mourning not the loss of love but the loss of belief in its permanence.

To read *Now and Forever* in illness is to confront the fragility of continuity. Every act of breathing feels conditional, borrowed. Steel’s novel, for all its melodrama, captures that same precarious grace—the effort to keep meaning alive when the narrative collapses. I closed the book and felt the pulse monitor echoing the rhythm of Steel’s sentences: slow, steady, and uncertain.

It struck me that her early novels, written before fame calcified her prose into formula, were really meditations on entropy disguised as love stories. *Now and Forever* isn’t about romantic fulfillment; it’s about survival through incompleteness. Jessica’s devotion is both her strength and her undoing. She becomes what Derrida might call a trace—a figure defined by what she has lost.

As I drifted back into sleep, the hospital ceiling faded into a blur. Somewhere in the haze, Jessica whispered something only the fever could translate: *Forever is just another word for waiting.*

Give it a try.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 STARS

"Although Jessica and Ian Clarke have been married seven years, they insist the thrill and excitement haven't dimmed. At Jessica's urging, Ian has quit his advertising job to become a struggling writer, and she supports him with her successful San Francisco boutique.

Ian's financial dependence on Jessica upsets him more than he admits, and in a moment of bored malaise, Ian's first casual indiscretion will create a nightmare that threatens everything Jessica and Ian have carefully built. What he does changes their lives, and them, perhaps forever, as they struggle to pay the price of his foolhardy affair." (From Amazon)

Originally when I read Danielle Steel novels I would have rated them 3-4 STARS, but now I would classify them as 1-2 STARS. These are great for those who like mild sex, unrealistic dramatic romances and grand plots.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler alert




I've no complaints on the plot though I'd have liked to know more about the woman's (who accused Ian of rape) past.

Ian cheated on Jessica but she still tried to save him at all costs. Heck everybody basically treated Ian better than he actually deserved. I wouldn't have seen his face if I found out he had been cheating but Jessica decided to give the relationship another shot? Wth!!

I felt that the ending would have been so beautiful if she had decided to adopt a child. I mean she was letting her past go so she could have shared her future with a child. A child who'd have loved her, not a man who cheated on her.


How could she go back after meeting all those ANTS and LIZARDS?!!!

[s · Rating 1 out of 5]

man this was just 150 pages of people in an entirely different unrelatable generation making decisions i think could have benefitted from therapy. girl, get a fucking therapist. this was the equivalent of like a marriage movie. i expected something gripping. i loved sisters it was so heartwarming. but seriously? a husband who cheats on his wife, jokes about rape, and is somehow charming, handsome and wonderful. i genuinely think i would have decked this guy in the face if i ever met him. i would give it 0 stars if i could. sorry ms. steel. i’m sure many people like it. i just don’t.

[Jacob Lasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Danielle Steel's writing style. It just wins me over.
But the story went in a weird direction and I wasn't taking an interest in that. But overall, it was really good.

At first, I really thought it was going to be a cute and sweet love story. It was at first. But then it turns wrong and I was sitting on my bed, shaking my book...NOOOOOOO with every twist and turn.

Now I have so many more books of her in my bedroom sitting on my bed. I'm really taking a liking to this author!

[Stacy Crook · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could almost tell by page 12 this wasn't a book I thought I wanted to keep reading. I thought well I'll read a bit further maybe once the story starts unfolding it will get better as it goes along. I'm to page 22 and after reading the reviews here, this is not a book I want to pursue reading. It's disappointing because I have read The Ranch and The Gift and probably others by her and enjoyed them. Maybe this is why it was on a bag for a buck sale at the library

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was just ok. Nothing really thrilling but it didn't bore me to tears. I did however keep forgetting that this is one of her older novels from the late 70's and every time she wrote about the main lady Jessica in the book smoking everywhere, including a court house, it made me pause for a minute and think... what! Once I got my mind wrapped around the time period, it was a decent read.

[Tonya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Danielle Steel novels and own them all thanks to my mother in law, who buys them and then passes them to me. This is one I read once and never again. If this is the only Steel novel you've read, do not judge the rest of her books by some of her early work. She has so many wonderful characters and amazing stories to tell, this just isn't one of them for me.

[Elke]

Ian und Jessica Clarke sind ein sonderbares Paar. Sie leben in San Franzisco und führen ein angenehmes Leben. Während Ian sich als Schriftsteller versucht, sorgt Jessica mit ihrer Boutique Lady J für den Lebensunterhalt. Für Jessie war es nie etwas Besonderes, im Gegenteil, dadurch, das sie Ian so eng an sich band, konnte sie ihre Verlustangst verdrängen. Sie hat vor einigen Jahren schon ihre Eltern und ihren Bruder verloren. Seither war Ian ihre ganze Familie und sie klammert sich nahezu an ihn.
Doch ihre heile Welt wird mit einer unbedachten Handlung zerstört: Ian ist fremd gegangen. Wie Jessica es bereits ahnt, passiert es nicht zum ersten Mal. Doch nun wird er von der Frau Margeret Burton zu Unrecht der Vergewaltigung bezichtigt und es kommt zur Anklage. Schon als er wegen dem ersten Verhör und den ersten Untersuchungen in Polizeigewahrsam bleiben muß, durchleidet Jessie die Hölle: Ihr Ian war nicht da und konnte sie trösten. Das er sie betrogen hat, spielt für sie nicht so sehr eine große Rolle.
Jessie kämpft mit allen Mitteln, um die Kautionssumme zu bekommen, damit er wieder bei ihr sein kann. Schließlich kündigt sich der Prozeß an und trotz allem sieht es für Ian schlecht aus. Die ganze Zeit über scheint Jessie stark zu sein und sie ist voller Hoffnung, das die Angelegenheit bald vorbei ist. Doch es kommt noch schlimmer: Ian wird für schuldig gehalten.
Für Jessie beginnt ein wahrer Albtraum und sie bekämpft ihre Verlustangst mit Medikamenten. Für eine ganze Weile durchlebt sie ihren Alltag wie durch einen Nebel und auch Ian geht es nicht gut, er muß bei den Besuchen mit ansehen, wie sehr seine Frau leidet. Schließlich streiten sie sich bei einem Besuch und werfen sich häßliche Dinge an den Kopf.
Als sie einen Nervenzusammenbruch erleidet und von einer guten Freundin für einen Kurzurlaub fortgebracht wird, hat sie die Chance, sich von allem zu erholen und sie erkennt, das sie langsam erwachsen werden muß. Und dabei stellt sie fest, das ihre Liebe eigentlich keine Chance mehr hat. Tut sie es tatsächlich? Warum sonst wirft sie Ians Briefe ungelesen in den Papierkorb?

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a beautiful novel, especially the ending.

I loved this novel. I read it when it was first published, and I'm revisiting Danielle Steel novels again. I love Danielle Steel's novels. They're like visiting old friends. You see them after a few years and forget how much you enjoyed them. Then you enjoy them twice as much because seeing them makes you remember the fun all over again. I love the location and characters except for the troublemaking idiots. Favorite characters are, of course, Jessica and Ian, Astrid and Beth, and the girls in the store. I love seeing the growth throughout the novel of Jessica, Ian, and Astrid. And everyone should have someone like Beth in their life. Beth was amazing. I know I will revisit this old friend someday yet again. If you've never read this novel or read it years ago, I would recommend this book to you. Beth gave lots of good advice and even made me think about what I want out of life. Just read this book and enjoy it.

[Annette Heslin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A young couple Jessica and Ian are madly in love with each other. Both are successful in their careers. Jessica owns and runs Lady J an upmarket boutique, Ian a writer. Everything was perfect.... until...one afternoon Ian was unfaithful and the lady in question accused him of rape.

Their world was torn apart. Jessica faithfully by his side, but still Ian went to jail. An act of revenge by the accuser for what happened to her in her early marriage.

A lot of things are put into perspective for both Ian and Jessica. A lot of life changes and for the better. But will their love survive the jail term?

[Bhavana John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book primarily focuses on the lives of Jessica and Ian,the relation takes through leaps and boundaries because of Ian cheating activities which lands him in trouble with the law.What I love about the book is how needy and possessive the character Jessica has been in the book and how she transforms into this less needy ,vulnerable women.
The ending of the book was a total let down.Maybe because I feel change leads to new chapter not going back to your old comfortable place.The character puts a brave front to change but its her never ending love for Ian which forms the crux of the story.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried reading this with the knowledge that it was written in the late 70s. That helped, but I still found the characters to be sad. I guess it’s a woman choice whether she forgives a man for cheating (and getting himself into a position to go to prison), but because she was 31, smart, and beautiful, I just feel like she owed herself so much more. Love or just the comfortable easy choice? I’m not sure. It just bored me. The best character was the little old lady. I would have rather known more about her.

[Soulinpages · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know this book received a lot of criticism for its portrayal of marriage and cheating. But, what you need to understand is that different people have different types of marriages. I'm in no way condoning cheating, I'm just trying to be non-judgemental about how other people choose to live.

It is Jessica's choice to forgive or to not forgive. It is Jessica's choice to stay or to walk away. It takes strength to walk away and it takes strength to stay.

Sometimes there is no winning,
If Jessica walked away from her marriage, she's too prideful and cold.
If Jessica chooses to stand by Ian, she's too weak and desperate.

Is it really wrong for her to do everything she can to make her marriage work?

[Teneka · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the book started out I was a little disheartened with the fact that she was so needy and dependent upon Ian. However once he cheated on her and she chose to stand by him that really upset me. and then when she started blaming herself for his indiscretions then I started relating to her as far as the fact of trying to take responsibility for a relationship failure. I'm glad she got out and did things on her own for a while but it seems that true love prevailed in the end.

[Heather Conway · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's very difficult to read a book when you feel most of the characters are deplorable. That is the case with this book. The characters are just terrible people. It's an older book so that may also be an issue. The characters are very 80's. Ms. Steel's use of the expression chrissake is heavy in the book. It just seems unnecessary.