Danielle Steel

Danielle Steel's novels tend to settle into the ordinary rooms of a life and then let change come through the door: marriages, work, children, the things people build and the things they give up. The books above share that steady, domestic attention, and they are easy to sink into when you want a story about adults making choices. If you are starting out, «Fine Things» follows a man whose ordered New York life is rearranged by love and a move toward Mexico, and «The House on Hope Street» puts a married legal team on a case about hidden money while their own household quietly raises the stakes.

Feels like family, love and longing.

Start with Daddy.

Steel published her first novel, Going Home, in 1973; Daddy appeared in 1989, by which time she was already one of the world's bestselling authors.

The moment a woman realises her body has made a decision without her.

He had come home from work to find her looking as though her best friend had died. But it was no friend, it was only “the rabbit.” She had been puzzled by the absence of her period once they got home, but she had been religious about using her diaphragm, and knew she couldn’t be pregnant. She had worn it practically night and day from the altar till they got home from their honeymoon, but somehow, some way, something had gone wrong, and she was pregnant. And she wanted to have an abortion. Oliver was horrified that she would even think of it. But Sarah was even more so at the thought of having children so quickly.

Excerpt from Daddy, Danielle Steel, Dell 1989. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals