The Affair by Danielle Steel – a Review

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Description:
When Rose McCarthy’s staff at Mode magazine pitches a cover shoot with Hollywood’s hottest young actress, the actress’s sizzling affair with a bestselling French author is exposed. The author happens to be Rose’s son-in-law, which creates a painful dilemma for her. Her daughter Nadia, a talented interior designer, has been struggling to hold her marriage together, and conceal the truth from their young daughters, her family, and the world. But Nicolas, her straying husband, is blinded by passion for a younger woman—and not only that, she is pregnant with his child.

Nadia’s three sisters close ranks around her, flying to Paris from Los Angeles and New York to lend support and offer their widely divergent advice. Athena, a jovial celebrity chef with her own TV show in Los Angeles, is leery of marriage. Olivia, a stern conservative New York superior court judge, is haunted by a shocking secret of her own. Venetia, a zany fashion designer, happily married with three kids, has the gentlest, most realistic point of view. Despite their well-meaning advice, Nadia needs to figure out what she herself thinks, and what to do next.

The Affair is about the painful journey to discover who you are, what you want, and how much forgiveness and compromise you are capable of in order to be loved. It’s about finding yourself at the crossroads of life when everything is on the line. It’s about the hard lessons we are forced to learn about others and ourselves. Right up until its final twist, this gripping novel is full of powerful insights about who we love, how much—and even how much we love ourselves.

Review:

The Affair by Danielle Steel is another one of her wonderful family-oriented novels.  Rose McCarthy, runs a successful magazine, who is widowed and the matriarch of 4 grown and successful daughters. She is a workaholic, but always finds time to keep up with her daughters lives and happiness.  During a meeting at the magazine ‘Mode’, her staff wants to do a cover for a young new actress, especially since there is a scandal of the girl being pregnant.  To Rose’s dismay, which she keeps quiet, the man with the pregnant actress happens to be her son in law.   Rose must make a decision to allow this to be on her magazine, even to the possibility of interviews.  She calls three of her daughters, to find out what they knew and their thoughts, before she calls her youngest daughter, Nadia, whose husband is cheating on her publicly.

Nadia talks to her mother, explaining that she is trying to keep her two young daughters from discovering about their father.  She was blindsided by all the publicity, and how her husband is besotted with this young actress, but he pleads with her to give him a chance until he helps the actress with the baby, and leave her, since he still loves Nadia.  Rose will fly to Paris, where they live, to help Nada in making the right decision, as Nadia ensures her mother to go forward with the cover, as everything is out in the open.  Naida needs to deal with her husband, protect her daughters, and decide what is best for her.

 Nadia’s three sisters decide to fly to Paris and spend a long weekend at their chateau to help give her support and advice.  It was wonderful to see the sisters together, and how close they were. We get to meet each of them, and learn about their own lives, and their significant others. Nadia is happy to be with her sisters, as each will have their own thoughts. All four of the girls have their own successful business in different fields; Nadia, is an interior decorator who lives in France, Olivia is a court judge living in New York, Venetia, is a fashion designer and Athena, is a celebrity chef living in Los Angeles.

What follows focuses mostly on Nadia, and whether she can move past Nicholas discretion, and decide if she should divorce him.  I loved how all four sisters were so close, and always being there for each other; even their significant others were pretty good.  Besides Nadia’s issues, we get to see how the other sisters are dealing with this, as well as their own drama and secrets along the way, not to mention how great Rose was in having such a great close-knit family.

The Affair was a wonderful family story line that brought the family together in this crisis.  This was so very well written by Danielle Steel.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher