From Kirkus Reviews
Predictable Steel (Silent Honor, 1996, etc.)--competent but uninspired--as three fortysomething women find romance, love, friendship, and hope (they already have the wardrobe) at an expensive dude ranch in Wyoming. Tanya Thomas, a rock-and-movie superstar; Mary Stuart Walker, perfect wife to a successful lawyer; and Zoe Phillips, a doctor who runs an AIDS clinic in San Francisco, were dorm mates at Berkeley. A fourth friend, Ellie, committed suicide in their senior year, and Zoe and Mary Stuart haven't talked since. Twenty-six years later, Tanya's third marriage has just fallen apart; Mary Stuart's son Todd has committed suicide, and her husband, who seems to blame her, has not made love to her in a year; and Zoe, like a Mother Teresa, leads a selfless life attending to her incurably ill patients, and has herself just been diagnosed with HIV. Tanya tricks her two old roomies into spending two weeks' vacation with her at the ranch. While there, they bond and then pair off. Zoe conducts a romance by phone with Sam Warner, a doctor who's always loved her, and who asks her to marry him when he hears that she has AIDS. Tanya, a simple Texas girl at heart, falls for Gordon, a wrangler at the ranch, and spends blissful nights in his cabin. And Mary Stuart gets her confidence back in the company of a successful writer, who wants to steal her away from her lout of a husband. Each of these men is ``there'' for his woman; likewise, each of these women is lovingly ``there'' for her friends. It's quite a feat that Steel can combine the tragedy of AIDS with color-coordinated cowboy boots and still create characters a reader can care about. Her mannered style, however, has begun to tilt toward caricature. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From the Publisher
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.
From the Inside Flap
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
About the Author
DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 530 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Toxic Bachelors, Miracle, ImPossible, Echoes, Second Chance, Ransom, Safe Harbour, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death.
From the Paperback edition.
