Answered Prayers: A Novel-Fast Shipping

Description

Danielle Steel’s 56th bestselling novel is about family and friendship, about onewoman’s struggle to break free from the past—and the man who helps her triumph. Andmost of all, it is about daring to believe Prayers.

On the outside,Faith Madison is the very picture of a sophisticated New Yorker. Slim, blond, stylish,Faith has a life many would envy. Overcoming a childhood marked by tragedy, marriedto a successful investment banker and having raised two grown daughters, Faith hasenjoyed her role as mother and wife, and the good life that emanates from their bustlingManhattan town house. But every step of the way, Faith has carried within her a secretshe could divulge to no one. And with it, she has kept an even more painful secretfrom herself.

For Faith, it is the sudden death of her stepfather—a man who, likeher husband, Alex, always remained just beyond her reach—that will touch off a journeyof change and revelation. At the funeral, painful memories flood back—and an oldfriend reenters Faith’s life. Faith is greeting mourners, when she hears a voicebehind her and a single word that brings a quick smile to her face: “Fred.” Onlyone person aside from her older brother, Jack, called her that. Brad Patterson wasJack’s best friend, a long, lanky boy who teased, tormented, and protected Faithwhen they fancied themselves “The Three Musketeers” as kids. When Jack died yearslater, Faith and Brad came together again in their common, inconsolable grief, thenlost touch once more amid the demands of families and busy lives a continent apart.

Now a lawyer in California, Brad has reentered Faith’s life just as she is makinga decision that plunges her marriage into crisis. Determined to fulfill a long-helddesire for a career of her own, Faith applies to law school against her husband’swishes, igniting a barrage of anger and recrimination. Faith’s only solace is thecorrespondence she has begun with Brad, a man trapped in an empty marriage of hisown, a friend she once lost and has found again. Soon e-mails are flying betweenthem, bridging three thousand miles, sharing much-needed friendship, support, as these two childhood friends rediscover each other, something extraordinaryis beginning to happen. In the safety of their friendship, Brad will find the courageto make a decision he should have made years before. And Faith, too, is changing,beginning to believe in herself—and in her right to grab hold of her dreams. Gatheringa strength she never knew she had, Faith is finally ready to face the most painfulstep of all: of sharing the secret that has long been haunting her, and truly openingup her heart for the first time in her life.

With unerring insight into the heartsof husbands and wives, lovers and families, Danielle Steel tells a wise and movingstory of the secrets that wound and the choices that heal—and of the second chancesthat come only once in a lifetime.