A Mother's Love
Published 2026-07-23 13:41:05
Book info
- Author
- Year 2025
- Genre Romance
- Format Ebook
- Pages 280
Recently widowed Halley Holbrook has spent decades building a career as a bestselling novelist. The victim of an extremely traumatic childhood, something she revealed only to her beloved husband, and the memories of which she has since tried to bury. Halley is now in her fifties and the mother of twin daughters who, while extremely close to her, are both ready to lead their own lives.
Spending Christmas and New Year alone for the first time in years, Halley decides to go to Paris and rent a beautiful house for the holiday. On the flight she meets Bart Warner, a successful businessman. Both travelling alone, they agree to spend time together during her stay.
Soon after her arrival in Paris, Halley is the victim of a crime which leaves her feeling shaken and vulnerable, and brings back the awful memories of her childhood. With Bart’s help, she manages to overcome her feelings of helplessness and despair and is determined to do everything she can to help the police find the perpetrator – who it appears is part of an international syndicate and a wanted man.
Thoughts
I don't know why I keep being drawn back to Danielle Steel books, particularly the new ones. The stilted writing and reliance on telling rather than showing don't sit well with me, and yet I keep coming back for more... so she must be doing something right!
I whipped through this one in super quick time, partly due to that easy-read nature of the writing, but also because it all felt very familiar... the previous Danielle Steel book I read had almost the same premise: a middle-aged empty nester feels lost, heads off to France to find herself, rediscovers who she is outside of motherhood and finds a new romance along the way.
A formula is fine, but this just felt quite predictable. Plus I'm so fed up with America's obsession with Paris. Any romantic trip in the movies ends up in Paris, and it's getting old.
There were a few additional elements that gave this story a bit more drama than the previous one, particularly in the difficult childhood Halley had which slightly informs how she reacts to the burglary she suffers in everyone's favourite city. Some darker moments, a complicated past, but even so, the story never really got gripping at any point.
So lesson learned, don't read two Danielle Steel's in close proximity to each other - there's certainly nothing fundamentally wrong with this one taken on its own. They're so easy to read, I keep coming back to the pile, but leave a bit more of a gap next time.
With that in mind, I'm going for a 3 out of 5 - easy to digest writing offset by a story without a fresh angle.
Rating: 3 / 5