This was my first Danielle Steel book. An entertaining and easy read.

Need a distraction so this fit the bill.

Danielle Steel is my go-to when simply reading for pleasure. I prefer her older books with wonderfully complex characters woven into historical times in our history.

I didn't think this book was ever going to end! It was so repetitive and drug out forever. The story could have been told in half of the pages!

I wanted to like this. I did. The plot sounded amusing and right up my twisted alley of stories that I would love. But can I just say, I was completely and utterly disappointed. From page one on, Steel's normal writing style of giving useless information at the wrong times, and using it repeatedly was apparent. It drove me nuts. So, I pressed on because, well, I wanted to see how it panned out.

Which brings me to the plot itself. I didn't like it. not one bit. of course the husband and next door neighbor ended up having an affair. whatever. their apparently strong marriage based off of strong sexual attraction wasn't that strong at all. *I laugh*... like I couldn't see it coming from a mile away.

That't not what bugged me, though. It was her string of affairs with men just because they found her attractive. The first was with her director, who many times she claimed to be cold, and even kind of feared him. Yet, rolled into bed she did. The second was with an actor known for having affairs with at least one person on the set every time. Then the story practically repeated itself. She rolled into bed because it seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't.

gag. me.

As the story came to its apparently happy conclusion, I continued to laugh at the main character's idiocy. To me, it seemed like she only loved him because of his children as her empty nest syndrome came in full as she quit her film writing career, with her children at college.

So no, this novel was anything but what I expect, for all the wrong reasons.

I don't recommend reading, even to traumatize yourself.

Tanya Harris is a forty-something mother and homemaker, and a part time, moderately successful writer of short stories and soap opera scripts. Tanya is a beautiful woman with stable, happy teenagers, a fulfilling and sexually active marriage, a career she loves, and no desire for any other life. She has long given up on her dream of someday writing a screenplay, but then her agent calls with an offer that's very hard to refuse: a major director wants her and her alone for a new high profile film. Tanya's first reaction is distress -- her daughters are just starting their senior year, how can she leave them, even if she could be home on weekends? Her long and detailed deliberations are cut short by her attorney husband, who convinces her that this is her big opportunity, and she goes off to Hollywood reluctantly to find that everything about Bungalow 2 at the Beverly Hills Hotel is perfect. She's cosseted in every possible way by her director and producer, she takes to the work immediately and without a hitch, she learns to appreciate room service and the luxurious perks that come her way. But she misses her family. The weekend trips home aren't enough, and her worries turn out to be well founded when her husband falls prey to a lonely neighbor (165). Steel follows Tanya as she copes with the disappointment and pain of separation and divorce, all the time pushing ahead with her screenwriting career, always returning to Bungalow 2 when she starts a new project. A series of relationships, each seriously flawed, result in an epiphany that sends her back home, where what she was looking for comes to find her. Steel's characters spend a lot of time debating and contemplating problems, and Tanya is especially good at wringing her hands, a modern day and forlorn Dorothy torn between Oz and Kansas.