The Kiss - Softcover

Steel, Danielle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044023669X ISBN 13: 9780440236696

Publisher: Dell, 2002

Synopsis

In her 53rd bestselling novel, Danielle Steel explores how a single shattering moment can change lives forever. The Kiss is at once a moving testament to the fragility of life and a breathtaking story about the power of love to heal, to free, to transform, and to make broken spirits whole.

On a warm June evening, a red double-decker bus, full of pasengers, speeds down a London street. A few blocks away, a man and a woman climb into a limousine, reveling in a magical evening of dancing and champagne. As their driver pulls into an intersection, the couple shares their first, searching kiss. For a moment, etched in time, all stands still--until, in a flash of metal and glass, their limousine is struck at full speed, crushed under the bus's tremendous weight. And a long journey begins--toward healing, toward hope, toward dreams of an infinite future...

Isabelle Forrester is the exquisite wife of a prominent Parisian banker who has long since shut her out of his heart. For lonely years, Isabelle has lived a life of isolation, pouring her passions into caring for her desperately ill son, Teddy, and into making their Paris home as happy as possible for her teenage daughter, Sophie. Isabelle allows herself one secret pleasure: a long-distance friendship by telephone with an American man, a Washington power broker who travels in the highest circles of politics and who, like Isabelle, is trapped in an empty marriage. To Bill Robinson, Isabelle is a godsend, a woman of extraordinary beauty and intellectual curiosity--a kindred spirit who touches him across the miles with her warmth and gentle empathy. Their relationship is a gift, a lifeline that sustains them both through the heartache of marriages they cannot leave and will not betray. Agreeing to meet for a few precious, innocent days in London, Isabelle and Bill find their friendship changing. Then, amidst the sudden crash of steel against steel, they are thrust onto a new path, a path fraught with pain but also with possibility.

Now, inside the cool, sterile wards of a London hospital, Isabelle and Bill cling to life, their bodies shattered almost beyond repair. In the days and weeks that follow, they slowly, painfully traverse a road to recovery littered with challenges of the body, spirit, and heart. Together, they must find the strength not only to embrace life again but to face what they have left behind. For Isabell, a loveless marriage turns into a brutal power struggle. For Bill, a time of healing exposes wounds that cut deeper than steel and realities that will test him to his core. For both, a tangle of changing relationships and the tragedy of another loss conspire to separate them once again. And this time they could lose each other forever.

In a novel that is as compelling as it is compassionate, Danielle Steel weaves a story of courage in the face of unimaginable loss. With the grace of a master storyteller, she explores the strength it takes to conquer our greatest fears, showing us how the toughest choices can yield the most unexpected rewards...and how the longest, most winding journeys can begin with a single kiss.

About this title

Review:

All the usual ingredients of a Danielle Steel novel are satisfyingly in place in The Kiss: sensitively handled romance, conflict and even tragedy, and Steel aficionados will be in the proverbial seventh heaven. It's a surprise to realise that this is her 53rd novel, but there's never a sense of the material becoming over-familiar: Steel has an ironclad ability to surprise the reader with the dramatic developments of her plots.

The heroine of The Kiss is Isabelle Forrester, married to Gordon, a highly successful Parisian banker. This is a joyless marriage, with both partners maintaining a façade that conceals the lack of feeling between them. But Isabelle will not abandon the relationship, as she depends on the financial support of her husband to care for their invalid son Teddy. Isabelle has learned to cope with her lonely existence, confiding in her only friend Bill Robinson, a deal-maker in Washington's upper echelons. Without Gordon's knowledge, the two become very close during their frequent, long-distance telephone conversations. When Isabelle accepts Bill's advice that she take a long overdue break in London, it is no surprise for her to find that a business trip takes him there the same weekend. They come together, and exchange an inevitable kiss. But tragedy awaits--a terrible car crash puts them both in intensive care. Can they recover from their injuries? And how do they deal with the mess their lives have become?

. Steel knows that the more she puts her characters through, the more we'll be involved--and this is the most extreme of her novels in some time. But we come to care about Bill and Isabelle, and few who begin The Kiss will be in a hurry to finish it; this is a world that exerts a total grip. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

Praise for Danielle Steel

"Steel is one of the best!"--Los Angeles Times

"Few modern writers convey the pathos of family and material life with such heartfelt empathy."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. . . . She delivers!"--Publishers Weekly

"What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity."--San Francisco Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 044023669X
• ISBN 13: 9780440236696
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 448