Heartbeat
Danielle Steel, 1991
★ 3.88 from 9.8k ratings on Goodreads
A daytime-soap creator who has built his life around one show must learn what his ambition has cost when love and family ask him to choose. A warm, soap-opera mood carries the story, with family longing and ambition pulling against each other at a steady, dramatic pace.
Feels like longing, joy and serenity. About love, family and ambition.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy second-chance romance and family drama set around a television writer's busy life. Be aware that some readers find the story repetitive and predictable, with a drawn-out romance and weak characters.
Why read it
It offers a dramatic look at what ambition costs when love and family demand a choice, with the emotional pull of a second chance.
A page from the book
When two people swap dreams and only one notices.
“I don’t know. . . you’ve changed . . .” And then she shook her head again, the long dark hair sailing around her like the dark wings of a fallen angel. “No. . . that’s not fair. . . we both have. . . .” She took a deep breath and tried to explain it to him. She owed him that much after five years of marriage and two children. “We’ve changed places, I think. I used to want to be a big star on Broadway, the dancer who made good and became a star, and all you wanted to do was write plays with ”integrity,’ and “guts,’ and ”meaning.’ And all of a sudden you started writing. . . .“ She hesitated with a small sad smile. ”You started writing more commercial stuff, and it became an obsession. What readers say
Readers found this heartwarming and romantic, especially its second-chance love and family focus. Others found it repetitive, predictable, and frustrating, with weak characters and a drawn-out romance.
Danielle Steel.Danielle Steel published her first novel, Going Home, in 1973; before that she worked in public relations and advertising in San Francisco.
Books that feel like this
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Daddy
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A woman who once wanted to write gives her life to a marriage and children in the New York suburbs — and finds the bill coming due.
Fine Things
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A man who builds a life of order and elegance discovers how quickly love can rearrange everything, in a story that moves from New York's fashion world to the beaches of Mexico.
Zoya
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From imperial ballrooms to exile, a Russian aristocrat learns what survival costs.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Heartbeat for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy second-chance romance and family drama set around a television writer's busy life. Be aware that some readers find the story repetitive and predictable, with a drawn-out romance and weak characters.
- What is Heartbeat like?
- A warm, soap-opera mood carries the story, with family longing and ambition pulling against each other at a steady, dramatic pace. Feels like longing, joy and serenity. About love, family and ambition.
- What should I read after Heartbeat?
- If you liked Heartbeat, try The Rescue (Nicholas Sparks), Love on the Brain (Ali Hazelwood) and Twisted Love (Ana Huang).
A taste of the feed
The quiet belief that raising a child is not quite real work.
So many people these days, it seemed, believed that these things (personal fulfillment and self-esteem) could come only from work, not from parenting, and many people believed that having children had nothing to do with raising them.
The Rescue · Nicholas Sparks
The hardest sacrifice might not be death.
Love.” The word floated between us on a soft gust of air. “Deep, abiding, unconditional love. You want it so much you’re willing to live for it.” Most people thought the biggest sacrifice they could make was to die for something. They were wrong. The biggest sacrifice someone could make was to live for something—to allow it to consume you and turn you into a version of yourself you didn’t recognize. Death was oblivion; life was reality, the harshest truth that had ever existed.
Twisted Love · Ana Huang
Wanting to disappear completely, and to be loved completely, in the same breath.
Yes I would like he thinks to live in such a way that I could vanish into thin air at any time without affecting anyone and in fact I feel that for me this would constitute the perfect and perhaps the only acceptable life. At the same time I want desperately to be loved.
Intermezzo · Sally Rooney
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