Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, warmly spent with family and friends, or maybe you spent it helping others, which is a wonderful way to spend it too. In San Francisco, the air and the skies finally cleared of smoke, as though for a special blessing on Thanksgiving Day, and the air quality finally returned to normal, after weeks of dangerously toxic air. I was very grateful to spend it with 5 of my children, extended family, and a few friends, for a peaceful, loving family holiday. I ate way too much, as I do every year, but the meal was delicious and hard to resist!!! Now onwards to the Christmas holidays, the next few weeks will speed by, as they always do, and I haven’t finished my holiday shopping yet!!!

I’m excited that my new book just came out in hardcover last week, “Beauchamp Hall”. I always try to pick a somewhat inspiring book to come out for the holidays. One that gives us hope for our own lives, and entertains at the same time (and will make a good gift for those who give my books as gifts).  The heroine of the story is a young woman (in her 30’s) whose life has taken several sharp turns in unwanted directions—until all her dreams are far behind her, out of reach now and long forgotten. Her early dreams were to become a book editor in New York. She lives in a small town in the Mid-West which she hoped to escape after college. And her early college years were promising. Her mother had given her her love of books, and shared the magic of reading with her. When she leaves for college, she has a married sister, who married young. Halfway through college, the heroine’s mother gets very sick, and she leaves college to take care of her—-intending to go back to college one day to pursue her dreams. Her mother is sick for several years, and by the time she passes on, it seems too late for the heroine to return to college. Her married sister is busy with her own life, so the heroine gets stuck with all the nursing duties, and gave up years of her life for her mother. She slips into a boring job she hates, with a very nasty boss. And out of loyalty and habit, and stuck in a rut, she sticks with the job she hates, which becomes a dead end for her. She has a boyfriend who treats her badly, and she deserves better. The only bright spot in her life is a good friend who works in the same place, and they are best friends. At Christmas, they play a game at the office called “The White Elephant Game”, which we play in my office, and in my family at the holidays. Everyone brings a gift anonymously, and takes turns picking a gift, ‘stealing’ the gifts from each other. She wins the DVD’s of a popular TV series she had never seen before (and isn’t too excited with the gift!!). And at Christmas her life goes off the rails, the job she hates becomes even worse, her best friend betrays her, her boyfriend, who has always taken her for granted, gets worse too. The sister who has never helped her criticizes her constantly. Her life unravels at a rapid pace, and the only consolation in her life are the DVDs she won of the TV series, which inspire her to change her life radically. She does what we all sometimes dream of doing—–changing everything in our lives, or even changing something. When everything in her dull routine life falls apart, she takes bold steps, and bravely sets out on an entirely new course. The book is about what happens to her then. Her bravery is rewarded with some terrific adventures, fun times, new places, and good people. And her life is as different as it could possibly be from the dreary existence she had before. The book is about having the courage to change things, to do something new and different, and throw open the doors and windows wide to new experiences——and the wonderful places it leads her. She has new dreams far better than anything she could have dreamed of before. And her courage is richly rewarded. I really hope you enjoy it, and that it gives you lots of smiles and new hope. Sometimes we just have to turn the dial a little for everything to change. I hope you have a lot of fun with the book!!!

Have a terrific week, and I hope that wonderful new things happen to you!!!

love, Danielle

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are well, happy and SAFE!!! And getting ready for a lovely Thanksgiving.

I’ve had a crazy week. I’ve been writing pretty much day and night for the last 6 weeks, working on new books. Locked up in my office, and working even harder than usual so that I can take a few days off and enjoy the holiday with my children.

And sadly, the terrible fires in California have been a huge concern, and a distraction, and source of great anxiety to us all. So many lives and houses lost, so much loss, in both Northern and Southern California. Particularly awful since the North end of the state was already so devastated only (exactly) a year ago, in Napa and Sonoma counties. Whole towns were razed to the ground. I have several friends who lost their homes last year. And now, here we are again, in both Northern AND Southern California. I’m sure you’ve seen it on the news. Horrifying pictures of entire areas in flames, houses collapsing, the fires raging uncontained. Last year, the smoke reached dangerously unhealthy levels, and traveled more than a hundred miles, at times planes couldn’t fly, ash fell on San Francisco like snow, 80 miles from the fire. This year, with the fires raging more than 100 miles from the city, the smoke has reached new, unimaginable levels of toxicity. The city has watched the air quality numbers rise to staggering heights. The numbers sailed through the dangerous ‘red’ zone, to purple, which is EXTREMELY dangerous, schools are closed, many offices, people in the city are being told to stay indoors, do not open windows, do not walk their dogs, the cable cars have been shut down as it would be too unhealthy for passengers to be in the open air, the ferries have stopped, everyone is told that they must wear masks if they go outdoors even for minutes. The masks suitable for the ‘purple’ level of emergency have a rubber seal and make it nearly impossible to breathe, but are essential for one’s safety with the highly toxic air. The bay has vanished beneath a lethal looking cloud of smoke, you can’t see anything beyond your house, the sky is black at all hours of the day, an eerie dim light shines looking like a midwinter evening at mid-day. It is frightening, and worrisome, people feel cooped up in their homes, and everyone is anxious about the fires, and worried now that this will not be a once in a lifetime catastrophic occurrence, but an annual event. Meanwhile, the fires rage on, and the fog continues to envelop both ends of the state. Yesterday, San Francisco was declared the #1 city in the WORLD with the most dangerous air: more so than Beijing, Bangladesh, all of the industrial cities in Mainland China, and cities in India and Taiwan. It looks and feels like the end of the world, like a science fiction movie, with everyone running around with masks, and the streets fairly empty as people try not to go out. How long will it last? No one knows. An ‘inversion’ has settled over San Francisco, keeping an atmospheric ‘lid’ on the smoke, and trapping it over the city. The hope is for rain sometime later in the week if the wind comes up, and it rains, but for now, nothing is moving as the numbers referring to the danger level of the air quality continue to rise to a shocking degree. Many people feel the effects. It is a truly catastrophic event for anyone in the affected areas, which are extremely large. And hundreds of people continue to be unaccounted for. Droughts every year set the stage for these terrible fires. At this point residents of the affected areas can only pray for relief soon.

Many people have tried to get away from it during the past weekend, to areas where the air is slightly healthier, hotel rooms were impossible to find, planes were full. It truly is a shocking natural disaster, and my heart goes out to all of those who have lost homes or loved ones.

And in the midst of it all, Thanksgiving will be in a few days. We all have many blessings to be grateful for, and I hope that you will be spending your Thanksgiving with family and/or friends. There are so many blessings I am grateful for, and I hope that the fires will end soon, and the state can begin to heal again.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving, and a safe, healthy one, with all my love, Danielle

Hi Everyone,

Happy Labor Day!! I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend, and can catch a last few days of vacation before life gets serious again, and the summer is officially over!!! I’m happy to be spending it with three of my daughters.

To get the Fall off to a good start, I have a new book coming out tomorrow, “In His Father’s Footsteps”, about three generations of a family. The book begins with the liberation of one of the concentration camps in World War II, the first camp liberated by the Americans, and among the survivors are a young man and young woman who met while in the camp, Jakob and Emmanuelle. Both managed to survive, and had lost their entire families. In the days after the camp is liberated, they try to figure out where to go next, having lost everything during the war (he is Austrian, she is French. He was from a wealthy family in Vienna, who lost everything, she is the daughter of a seamstress in Paris), their friendship blossoms into love, as they help each other get their bearings and regain their health after their shocking experiences. With the help of an American refugee organization, they marry and immigrate to New York, where they are sponsored by a man who owns a garment factory, where they are given jobs, and a tiny apartment on the Lower East side. They arrive in New York with nothing, and work hard. They are ultimately exploited by their sponsor, struggle to survive, get better jobs, and are determined to make a good life for themselves in America, and they have a son, born in New York. With some good breaks, and the fruit of their labor, they meet a kind man who gives Jakob a good job as a runner in the wholesale diamond market. With time, hard work, integrity, and diligence, Jakob carves out a solid career, eventually owns a business, and provides a good life for his wife and son Max. They are cautious, sensible, persevering people, deeply affected by their wartime experiences and all that they lost, and serious about the solid, successful life they have built since. Max grows up in more fortunate circumstances, thanks to his father’s hard work, and he in turn is affected by his parents’ view of life, and he wants a very different, all American life, and to take advantage of the opportunities and education he has been fortunate to have. A Harvard graduate, he builds a successful business of his own, and leads a fast track life, very different from his parents’ lives, who are cautious and always concerned that another war could sweep everything away again. A visit to the camp his parents survived, and where they met, gives him new respect for his parents, and better understanding of what they’ve been through and how far they have come. Max’s own life choices in turn affect his own children, who want to make choices very different from his, and have yet another perspective than their father’s and their grandparents’ view of life. It’s about family ties, about how each generation differs from the last, but with a common theme of hard work, integrity, and the importance of family, as they strive to leave their own mark on the world, each in a different way than the generation that came before them. It’s about how we evolve, and what we learn from our parents and grandparents, and how we come to understand them as we mature, no matter how different we are.   I hope you enjoy the book, and each generation in it as the story unfolds.  I’m excited about the book and hope you will be too. I always love the poignancy and compassion of family sagas, as we watch a family build and grow, as each generation tries to improve on what was achieved by those who came before them.

I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day, and that you have some wonderful memories of the summer to carry you forward into the fall. Have a great week!!!

love, Danielle