Sisters by Danielle Steel

In this very weak novel from Danielle Steel we are told the story of a year of emotional tumult in the lives of the four Adam’s sisters. The youngest is twenty-one year old Candace known simply as ‘Candy’ around the world due to her super-model status. Next is twenty-six year old Annie a perpetual art student thanks to the financial support of her parents, after studying for art degrees in Rhode Island and Paris she is now living in Florence to learn painting techniques of the old masters. The second oldest sister is Tammy, twenty-nine who having studied television and communications is now the producer of a successful television show in Los Angeles. The oldest sister is Sabrina, thirty four a high flying lawyer.

Having been introduced to the girls chapter by chapter and repetitively given information about the life of each sister they all descend upon their family home in Connecticut for the traditional Fourth of July celebrations with their parents Jane and Jim, the archetypical happily married couple. It is over this weekend that their lives are torn apart by tragedy. The sisters decide that to get the family back on track they will live together under the same roof for a year, something they have not done altogether at once for many years. Maybe this is why they always get on as adults when they meet up how will they all cope. It is a sad but disappointingly weak storyline which I felt was padded out tremendously by the repetitions mentioned earlier continuing throughout the novel. At least we learn that it all worked out ok, they coped with living together again, just about, as they rebuild their lives over the next year with the inevitable happy ending.

Although I have been reading the novels of Danielle Steel as light relief for over thirty years I am now seriously wondering why I continue to do so. She may be a prolific and popular author but I think the time has come to remove her novels from my wishlists and spend more time reading other authors that I enjoy more.