On Sarah Whitfield's seventy-fifth birthday, memories take her back to New York in the 1930s. To a marriage that ends after a year, leaving Sarah shattered. A trip to Europe with her parents does little to raise her spirits, until she meets William, Duke of Whitfield. In time, despite her qualms, William insists on giving up his distant right to the British throne to make Sarah his dutchess and his wife. On their honeymoon, the newlyweds buy an old French chateau, but not long after, the war begins. William joins the allied forces, leaving Sarah, their first child, an infant, and their second child on the way, in France. After the Nazi forces take over the chateau, Sarah continues to survive the terror and deprivation of the Occupation, unwavering in her belief that her missing-in-action husband is still alive. After the war, as a gesture of goodwill, the Whitfields start buying jewels offered for sale by impoverished war survivors. With Sarah's style and keen eye, the collection becomes the prestigious Whitfield's jewelry store in Paris. Eventually, their jewelry business expands to London and Rome, as their family grows. Phillip, their firstborn, is stubborn and proud; Julian, their second son, is charming and generous and warm; Isabelle is rebellious and willful; and Xavier, unusual and untamed, is the final unexpected gift of their love. They each find their own way, but will be drawn to the great house of gems their parents built. In Jewels, Danielle Steel takes the reader through five eventful decades that include war, passion, international intrigue, and the strength of family through it all.
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"I was never a Danielle Steel fan. I carried the perception that her books were trashy and that I had no use for that crap. And this remains the only book of hers that I have read. But I don't regret it. I was first turned on to the story when I saw the movie version on TV one day. It's a 6-hour miniseries that I could not get enough of. I was totally engaged and adored the love story between the two main characters. It was the kind of love I wanted. The story is full of romance, royalty, war, lots and lots of children, money, sex, scandal, and like the title suggests, a lot of jewelry. When I found out the movie was based off a book, I knew I had to read it. And like it's film version, the book was quite long and took a while for me to read but I absolutely loved it and could almost say that the book was better than the movie. Almost."
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Lindsay (4 out of 5 stars)