Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

10/3/22, Hope in the Sky

Posted on October 3, 2022

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been a VERY busy time, I finished writing my 200th book a week ago. It is definitely a landmark, and I wrote my first book at 19. It’s been a long, interesting road to get here, and I still love what I do. Writing is a wonderful way to share thoughts and stories and hopes and dreams and life experiences with the people who read them. I LOVE varying my subjects, and I’m excited about the next books coming out, to share with you.

I am VERY excited that ONE WEEK from today, my new hardcover The High Notes is coming out. It’s one of those books/stories that really snagged my heart while I wrote it. It’s about a young girl with an incredible singing voice, with no mother and a single father, who exploits her talent. With little regard for her, she is an innocent child with an amazing gift, he drags her from one dusty Texas town to the next, and has her singing in dingy bars, to stunned audiences once they hear her. She’s 12 once he starts booking her into bars, she eventually lands in Las Vegas at 18, gets booked into tours by disreputable managers who exploit her and the other young musicians and singers on tour. It’s the hard life of beginning a career in the music world, travelling all day, singing all night, setting up the sound and lights and stage, working in miserable conditions, and her slow but stunning rise to enormous fame and how she got there, and the success she worked so hard for and deserves. I hope you fall in love with her, as I did, and it will open a whole new world of what that climb to the top looks like!!!

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead, with happy surprises, peaceful moments, problems easily solved, people around you who you love, and who love you and treat you well. I hope it is an easy week for you. I’ve been focusing a lot on gratitude lately. It seems to make everything go better than worrying about all the things that aren’t going right.

I saw a beautiful rainbow the other day. rainbows are supposed to be good luck. So I’m sharing the one I saw with you—–I hope you have a lucky week ahead,

much love, Danielle

8/8/22, The Good Doctor and The Challenge

Posted on August 8, 2022

Hi Everyone,

I hope you’re enjoying the second half of summer, and finding time off to just lie under a tree somewhere and dream, or read on a beach, or enjoy a series.

I love sharing it with you when I find a series I love. I am currently LOVING “The Good Doctor” on Netflix. It’s a medical series with appealing characters, knotty medical problems to solve and life dilemmas. It’s beautifully acted and well written, and there are enough positive resolutions and good life lessons in each episode that you come out on an up note and not a down one. I don’t like series where so much bad stuff happens that you’re more depressed after a show than before you watched it. We watch these shows for entertainment and distraction after all. And The Good Doctor gets my vote for the best show at the moment.

And if you would rather read quietly, I have a new book coming out in two weeks, “The Challenge”, about 5 young wholesome 14 year olds, a slightly older brother, and a younger one who go for a picnic at the base of Granite Peak, in Fishtail, Montana, and a fun afternoon turns into a nightmare with a flash flood out of the mountains, which blocks their way back, and traps them on the mountain. A five day search begins, as the parents are sorely tested, and the picknickers fight for their survival, with a forest fire approaching. I love that book, between the tension of the parents, and the brave struggle of the kids. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. I hope you have time to read it before vacation time ends.

Have a great week, full of fun moments and the final days of summer,

love, Danielle

8/1/22, It never gets old!!

Posted on August 1, 2022

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I hope that all is well with you as the second half of the summer gets started on August 1st. I hope you have some fun plans for the month ahead, days off, or a vacation, and a break from work.  Back from my week of vacation with three of my kids, I’ve been working on three books, as I often do, at different stages. And I finished one of them on Sunday, which was so exciting. It always is!!!

 

Writing is arduous and solitary. Not lonely because the characters in the books keep you company, but you have to be alone to do it. I can’t work with any kind of noise, distractions, or interruptions. If something interrupts me, it stops the flow of the story, and it can take me a day or two even to get back “in the groove”. And when I finally finish the book, it’s an AMAZING feeling—like flying. Writing is like climbing a mountain, it is hard work. And sometimes you feel like you’re crawling up the mountain and you’ll never make it. Along the way, there are some beautiful views, of sunsets and sunrises, or peaceful moments in the middle of the night, when the story is just the way you want it to be, and you’re on top of the world. And four hours later, you have four flat tires and you’re at the bottom of a ravine, and you can’t see your way up the cliff again, and you think you’ll never make it. It’s a rocky path along the way.

 

So when you do make it, and you finish that last sentence on the last page, you feel as though you just made it to the summit of Everest. YOU MADE IT!!! It’s the most incredible feeling and it never gets old. I love it, and I hope you love the book I just finished!!! Now on to the next one….there is always another mountain to climb. I love the challenge!!! Have a great week full of victories and fun moments and things you love to do!!

 

Enjoy these last days of summer!!

 

lots of love, Danielle

4/19/22, Beautiful

Posted on April 19, 2022

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I hope you had a lovely Easter, or Passover and are enjoying some sunny days!!!!!

 

I’m excited that I have a new book coming out this week, in hardcover, “Beautiful”. It’s the story of a young Super Model who is at the wrong place at the wrong time, in the terrorist attack of the Brussels airport. One side of her face remains perfect, and the other half is severely damaged, which forces her to rethink what beauty is to her, and in the world. Which half is the one that matters? The perfect half, or the other? Is she still beautiful after the attack?. And more importantly, what really IS beauty, and what does it mean? What makes someone beautiful, a flawless face, or a light from within?. In her quest to face the challenge she is confronted with, the young model digs deep, and goes to Africa, where she discovers the children in Angola, who live with still active minefields and many are similarly afflicted as the woman in the book. Working with them, in the beauty of Africa, she discovers a whole new dimension added to her life, which makes her life meaningful again. I really hope you love the book.

 

It is especially dear to my heart, as I have a young niece who was in that very attack, and has taught us all many lessons of courage and love, perseverance and strength. And it’s interesting for us all to examine what we believe from time to time, about beauty, and what it really means to each of us.

 

Have a wonderful week, with lots of good things happening for you!!!

 

love, Danielle

 

3/8/20, The Affair

Posted on March 8, 2021

 

Hi Everyone,

 

Wow, if you follow me on Instagram at officialdaniellesteel, you saw that it was a crazy busy week for me. My new hardcover book “The Affair” came out on Tuesday, and some wonderful opportunities came my way to highlight the book. The book is fun and intricate, about an affair, with a husband who has fallen in love with another woman, and all the people it affects, the wife, of course, the other woman (a sexy, very young starlet, not exactly wife material, but very appealing to him, although his wife is lovely too), and her family. Her mother (head of a major fashion magazine) and three sisters rise to the occasion to support and advise her, and in the end, she must decide herself what to do about her marriage. Her sisters are all interesting characters, all totally different, who each give her completely different advice: the very relaxed Bohemian sister in LA who is a TV chef, and doesn’t believe in marriage, the sister who is a Superior Court Judge, extremely conservative and judgmental who tells her to divorce, but has some dicey long-buried secrets of her own, and the sister who is happily married with three kids, is a fashion designer, and advises her not to make any sudden decisions, and really think if she wants to divorce or forgive her husband and go back and try again. I love the book, and the characters in it, and I hope you do too.

 

On Monday, I was on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts, whom I love as an incredibly special person, and a dear friend. I was on Zoom live from France, which was somewhat technically challenging, and my first Zoom. And I loved being on with Robin, as I always do, although I missed our hug at the end!! It is always an enormous privilege to be on the show with her.

 

On Tuesday, the book came out, which is always exciting.

 

And on Friday, I was part of collaboration with the amazingly talented designer Jonathan Anderson, for Loewe, the fashion brand. Like all fashion shows right now, it could not happen with an audience, so they cancelled the show, and printed a newspaper of their own showing the collection, to be distributed with major newspapers, in major cities all around the world, translated into the language in each of about 20 countries. And as a ‘surprise’ with their newspaper, were the first 25 pages of my book “The Affair”, also translated where necessary. It was really great, and fantastic to be included in such an innovative concept. As a result, I was interviewed by Vogue.com on Friday night.  And Jonathan and I did a podcast, where we interviewed each other alternately, which was really fun. I hope you have a chance to hear it.

 

So it was a very exciting week. I hope you had a great week too, and that you have a wonderful week going forward—-and a chance to read “The Affair”.

 

many thanks, and much love,  Danielle

 

 

3/1/21, Good Morning America with Robin Roberts

Posted on March 1, 2021

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I hope the last week was a good one for you. We’ve had better weather, and some sunny days, which cheered everyone up!!! And today is a VERY exciting day. Tomorrow my new book, The Affair, comes out, in hardcover. And today, I am appearing on Good Morning America, with Robin Roberts, who is one of THE nicest people I know, and an amazingly talented, wonderful (very beautiful) woman, whom I am honored to consider a friend. I am a huge admirer of her talents, her intelligence, her poise, her charm, her kindness to guests on the show. Being on the show with her is an honor and a privilege every time, when she has me on the show. This time will be new and different, I won’t be seated next to her, I will be three thousand miles away, in my own living room in Paris, on Zoom, joining the show live. And I’m somewhat behind in technology—it will be my first Zoom!! I will miss giving Robin a hug at the end of the show, but in the pandemic, the show is put together with appearances by Zoom, although Robin will be in the studio.

 

I’m usually very shy, and VERY nervous before TV appearances, particularly Live ones, but Robin makes it a wonderful experience every time, highlighting the books and being incredibly kind to me, which puts me at ease. I am so thrilled to be on the show with her, and we’ll add a clip of the show to the blog so you can see it too, in case you missed it on TV. Robin is just a spectacular person, and I know you’ll enjoy watching her.

 

Have a great week, full of happy surprises, great opportunities, fun moments, and good news!!

 

love, Danielle

 

Here is a link to my interview:  https://bit.ly/3uLv366

10/26/20, “Expect a Miracle”

Posted on October 26, 2020

 

Hi Everyone,

 

Another week in this crazy year. I hope things went well for you in the past week. It’s time for things to start going right, instead of this crazy roller coaster ride we’re all on. I had a very interesting and exciting business meeting, and did some writing. I’m keeping social activities down somewhat and going out less than previously, in honor of the higher Covid numbers. It seems smart to be careful. France is currently wrestling with the ‘second wave’, things look deceptively normal, but the danger is out there. The government imposed a 9pm curfew, to keep nighttime social activity down, and people are afraid of getting confined again. This long period of uncertainty is stretching out, we just have to try and live it day by day until the storm clouds clear.

 

I am VERY excited about my new book coming out this week, on Tuesday. “Expect A Miracle”. I chose the title two years ago, but it turns out to be the perfect title for the book right now. It’s a very special book, and a first for me. I have collected quotations all my life, since my teens—-quotes of famous people, anonymous ones, things I’ve seen in magazines, on greeting cards, read somewhere, saw on walls as graffiti. I love reading those quotes to boost my spirits, give me hope, make me smile, or laugh out loud, to make me think, or apply to the challenges of life. Very often, I frame the quotes I love and hang them on my walls (in my office in San Francisco, and in my dressing room in Paris—-places where I see them every day).That book has been a lifetime in the making, and we’ve been working on it for 2 years, sifting through the quotes, verifying the source whenever possible, working on the lay out, and picking designs to go with them. I wanted the book to be handy and pretty, easy to pick up, and open to any page and find a quote you’d love. It’s divided in 5 ‘chapters’, Road Map to Life, Courage, Faith, Laughter, and Love. But you can open the book anywhere, and hopefully find whatever you need at that moment. I REALLY hope you love the book as much as I do. It’s small, and shiny red, and would make a great gift, and I hope those quotes accompany you now, and give you as much hope, comfort, joy, and strength as they have given me. That book is straight from my heart to you.

 

I really really really REALLY hope you love it!!!

 

Have a great week and I hope wonderful things happen to you!!! Even during this challenging Covid time, terrific things can happen!! I wish you many of them!!!

 

love, Danielle

9/28/20, Four Seasons

Posted on September 28, 2020

 

Hi Everyone,

 

How are you holding up? Whether locked down in the state or country where people live, I’m beginning to hear people’s wings drooping a little. I don’t think any of us expected the pandemic to go on for this long, or what it would feel like. From friends and family in New York, I’m hearing that it’s “okay, but weird” and not the New York they know. Some places where life seems almost normal with restaurants doing a booming business, and other areas where the city seems dead and the streets are deserted. Big companies haven’t opened their offices yet, like Random House my publisher, their office buildings are deserted, smaller companies (like my agent) are starting to open and people are returning to work, which is encouraging. I think the two things that make people feel ‘normal’ again are being able to go back to work in their familiar surroundings and function more normally, and being able to see people socially again. One thing I have learned from this whole experience is how much people need to see and be with other people in order to feel happy and well balanced. Those who have been isolated, especially for extensive periods of time, like San Francisco which remains still heavily confined (with toxic air quality from the recent fires), people sound morbidly depressed when I talk to them. You can only isolate people for so long, and then other/psychological issues begin to take hold, which seem almost as damaging as the virus. Long term isolation (7 months now in San Francisco) and deprivation ultimately seems to cause depression, understandably, and other problems. The numbers (of sick, deaths, etc.)are impressively low in San Francisco, but at what price glory, if the entire population is depressed from being deprived and isolated. I haven’t spoken to a single person there whose spirits weren’t at the bottom of the barrel. It’s sad to hear, and favoring the numbers and statistics at the price of the population’s morale and emotional wellbeing seems a high price to pay for those statistics. People speak only of how shut down the city is, stores boarded up, business not getting back on its feet, and the homeless roaming everywhere, looking as depressed as those who have been confined at home for too long. And things aren’t back to normal in LA either, according to friends and relatives there. Normalcy is hard to achieve anywhere these days, around the world.

 

In Europe, ever since the abandon of those who went on vacation all over Europe this summer, crowded together on the beaches, didn’t wear masks, spent their nights in bars and illegally opened discos, have caused the numbers to soar, in France, Spain, the numbers are up in England, Germany, Austria. Some countries are starting to confine certain areas, and the general population is beginning to worry that there will be a general lockdown confinement again. Moderate measures are being re-instated, with the threat of worse to come if people don’t get serious again and the numbers don’t come down. In France, and probably the rest of Europe, the young (from adolescents to 25) steadfastly refuse to wear masks and social distance, and are putting themselves and everyone else at risk, and refuse to listen to the warnings. It’s frustrating to see them in big groups on the streets, hugging and kissing, laughing with their arms around each other, and not a mask in sight. No one seems to be able to get them to listen, to their parents, or the government, in any country, while the numbers continue to rise daily.

 

The uncertainties of the situation are giving everyone anxiety. About jobs, their health, their families, the economy. It’s hard to guess where the safest place is to be now, with ups and downs, and how to get there. I miss my kids fiercely. Restrictions are being put on the European borders again, with quarantines being enforced, and there is no sign at all of the US borders opening, or any reciprocity of open borders between the US and other countries. Americans are still barred from travelling to other countries, except for Croatia, Brazil, and some African countries. We just have to hang in until things return to normal again, or start to get better.

 

In France, summer stopped abruptly and turned to instant winter, with chilly days, cold nights, and weeks of gloomy rainy weather. It suddenly made me realize that this is now my Fourth season in the midst of Covid. It began last winter, we deconfined in Spring, went through a hot summer (with too much self-indulgence in France, we are paying the price for now), and now here it is Autumn, our fourth season of Covid. I just celebrated the my fourth child’s birthday on Face time, virtually, when I had never missed a single one of their birthdays before, with another one due in the next few weeks, and I celebrated my own birthday on Face Time with them this summer. I can’t wait to celebrate birthdays again for real with hugs and kisses, opening gifts and blowing out the candles together. That will be a happy day.

 

Let’s hope that things start to improve again soon, without any more spikes in the numbers, despite gloomy predictions I hope won’t prove to be true. We deserve some good news. And let’s hope that people stay serious about this, so the numbers come down, and we have something to celebrate!!

 

In the meantime, Fall is here, which is usually an invigorating time of year. We just have to stick with it. I just started a new book, and I’m sending love and prayers to all of you. I’ve run out of Mickey Mouse masks, and am now wearing pink ones with Pandas on them. And after that, I have pale blue ones, with little dogs on them.  Let’s hope things improve radically before I have to wear the ones with the multi colored dinosaurs on them. Have a great week, wherever you are, we’re in this together and we will make it through, hopefully before the start of another season, or we miss too many more birthdays and events of our loved ones. I missed a major family event last week, which was an all-time low for me. Onward, and Upward!!! Hang in!!!

 

So much love to you,   Danielle

 

 

9/21/20, Writing…

Posted on September 24, 2020

Busy writing a new book! See you next week….

Filed Under Books, Writing | Leave a Comment

4/27/20, The Wedding Dress

Posted on April 27, 2020

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I hope you’ve had a peaceful and not distressing week sheltering in place, and are finding ways to keep busy. Series, movies, reading, cooking, needlepoint, baking, house repairs, exercise, letters to friends, playing with your pets, or working. It’s a challenge to help speed the time along until we are free again. But in the meantime, staying confined is important to save lives, and keep us safe and healthy.

 

I just finished a book, and a re-write while in lockdown confinement, so I’ve been keeping busy.

 

And exciting news: I have a new hardcover novel coming out tomorrow, Tuesday 28 April, “The Wedding Dress”, in time for Mother’s Day. I LOVE this book and hope you do too, and it’s a great escape to distract us from our very unusual circumstances right now. The book begins in the 1920s, and covers some important events in modern history, it’s about a beautiful wedding dress made in Paris, and worn by 4 generations of the women in a San Francisco family. Each of the women is very unique and different, and each of them have interesting lives, typical of their time in history, from before the Crash of ’29, to the Second World War, the Flower Power days of the hippies, right up to the tech days on the Internet in current times. The book is a celebration of those 4 brides, in 4 generations, while encompassing some very interesting times in our history. I hope you love it. There is something very special about a wedding dress which accompanies 4 different generations of brides!!! And I think the book is very special, and I hope you’ll think so too. It might be the perfect antidote to our current confinement.

 

And this Friday will be May Day, May 1st. It’s the day when everyone in France gives friends, loved ones, coworkers, family members a little sprig of lily of the valley, to show love and wish people good luck. Paris smells delicious on May 1st, with street vendors on every corner selling little bunches of lily of the valley. I don’t think they’ll be out this year, but it’s a time honored tradition in France, and the lily of the valley stands will be back next year. And in the meantime, Happy May Day!!!

 

I hope you have an easy week, I wanted to share the news with you about the book in case you’re looking for something new and fun to read. And I hope that soon, we’ll all be out, enjoying the Spring weather, free again, with these challenging times behind us.  Take good care, stay sheltered in place according to the rules in your area—-and have a GREAT week!!!

 

 

love, Danielle