The Ranch » (Reprint)

Danielle Steel has become more of a legend than any one of her books, which never fail to make the bestseller lists. Something of Steel's refinement and gentility transfers to her prose as her heroines enjoy enviable triumphs over inevitable tragedies.

In her 39th best-selling novel, Danielle Steel brings to life the story of three women, old roommates from college, who come together after twenty years, one summer at The Ranch.

They had been inseparable in college, Mary Stuart, Tanya, and Zoe. But in the more than twenty years that followed, the three had moved on with their lives, settled in different cities, and found successful careers and new roles as mothers and wives. By chance, each would find herself alone for a few weeks one summer, wrestling with the present and the past. At a sprawling ranch in the foothills of Wyoming's Grand Teton Range, the three women come together and find courage, healing, and truth, and reach out to each other once again.

Despite the honesty they once shared, now pretense between them runs high. Mary Stuart Walker, married for twenty-two years to a Manhattan lawyer, kept herself busy with volunteer work, and now masks the loneliness that consumes her life. A year has past, and Mary Stuart still hasn't gotten over the guilt, or the fear that her husband will never forgive her for their son's death... Tanya Thomas, an award winning singer and rock star, enjoys all the trappings of fame and success—a mansion in Bel Air, legions of fans, and a broken heart. All the Grammy awards in the world can't make up for the children she wanted but never had, the men who have taken advantage of her, and just gone along for the ride, and still are... Dr. Zoe Phillips has her hands full as a single mother to an adopted two-year-old, and as a doctor at an AIDS clinic in San Francisco. Predictably, as they all know, she is as liberal as she ever was, and marriage was never a dream she coveted or shared with them. Tending to her patients is a full-time job that leaves Zoe little time for herself—until unexpected news forces her to reevaluate both her future, and her current life.

But despite the changes in their lives, their friendship is still a bond they all treasure and share. For each of the women, a few weeks at the ranch will bring healing and release, as old hurts are buried, ancient secrets revealed, and love replaced or renewed. In The Ranch, bestselling novelist Danielle Steel brings reality to the meaning of friendship, with dramas whose truths we all share.

Publishers Weekly

Twenty years ago, in college, the three female protagonists of Steel's 40th novel were "like sisters." Now, Mary Stuart Walker is on all the best charity boards in Manhattan, Tanya Thomas is a Hollywood megastar and Dr. Zoe Phillips runs an AIDS clinic. But sometimes it's tough on women who seem to have it all. Mary Stuart's marriage is glacial, and her husband, a big-shot lawyer, blames her for their son's suicide. Tanya's third husband walks out on her, unable to withstand life in the tabloid fishbowl. Zoe, single mother of an adopted child, learns that she has AIDS. What to do? If you're one of these three, you head for a Wyoming dude ranch for a little R&R-Reunion and Romance. In Steel's cotton-candy world, horses, female comradeship and new men prove the panacea for every woe-except for bad writing. Steel seems to be going for the world record here for sentences that begin with the word "And," imparting a herky-jerky rhythm to her narrative. The trials of being a megastar are granted far more dramatic weight-both in terms of sheer page length and depth of discussion-than are those of someone stricken with AIDS. As usual, Steel's world is one in which, no matter what they're going through, the women always look "spectacular." As for the real world, there's just no room for it here.