Description:

Danielle Steel's fifty-first bestselling novel tells the story of an extraordinary man, the woman who loved him, and a bond so powerful it could never be broken. It is about finding the courage to let someone you love fly free....

The phone call came on a snowy December afternoon. Kate was certain it was Joe, the brilliant, visionary man who had been her soulmate, her driving force since the night they met, almost thirty-four years before. What she got was the one call she had never wanted, and didn't expect.

As the snow continued to fall, Kate's mind drifted back, to the moment when she and Joe first met. She had been just seventeen and he was young, powerful, dazzling, and different from any man she'd ever known.

It was just days before Christmas, 1940. The war is raging in Europe when Kate Jamison makes her debut in New York City. In a room filled with the scions of East Coast society and the leading political figures of the day, it is Joe Allbright who catches Kate's eye.

At twenty-nine, Joe is the brilliant protege of Charles Lindbergh, and already a legend in flying circles for his record-breaking speed and state-of-the-art airplane designs. All Kate sees is a tall, strikingly handsome man who seems at once awkward and larger-than-life, like a shining star -- just out of reach. Joe, too, is caught off balance by his response to Kate, seeing in this beautiful young woman vitality and youth, the lifelong soulmate he never expected to find.

As the months pass, they will meet again, forging a bond that will set the course of both their lives. Kate will go off to study at Radcliffe. Joe will skyrocket to fame in modern aviation. Joe's planes are his life, his passion. But irresistibly drawn to her, like moth to flame, he always comes back to Kate. Even after the long, dark years of World War II, when Kate was sure she had finally lost him completely, Joe returns.

Never willing to stay, always needing to fly away. As planes are for him, Joe is the passion in her life.

When the war is over, at twenty-four Kate wants marriage and a family. Joe wants the world, his limitless horizons, and the unique aviation empire he is building. Unwilling to wait any longer, Kate moves on with her life. But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives.

Against a vivid backdrop of war and thrilling innovation, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, weaving an intensely human story that spans three decades, of two intensely different people who, in spite of themselves, are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other's lives.

With rare insight and emotional power, she brings to life a tale of unconditional love, sacrifice, and compromise--the joining of two remarkable halves into a single, far more powerful whole. It is a novel of extraordinary grace and compassion from a master storyteller, perhaps the best story she has told.

**

From Publishers Weekly

Nobody ever said love was easy, but in Steel's latest romance, it's a perpetual uphill battle. From the moment beautiful, enormously poised 17-year-old Bostonian Kate Jamison meets handsome, much older Joe Allbright just before Pearl Harbor at a debutante party, she's desperately in love. Joe is smitten, too, but he is deeply committed to his career as a pilot he's already an ace, associated with Lindbergh. The two try to pretend they can just be friends, but passion flares between them on the eve of war. When Joe returns from Europe, after years in a German prison camp, everyone expects they will marry, but Joe cannot commit and Kate moves on. She goes to New York, marries a college friend and has a son; meanwhile, Joe establishes an airplane-building empire. Still, they can't forget each other, and when they meet up again, even social mores can't keep them apart. Their roller-coaster relationship takes many more dips and turns before Kate finally realizes what she must do to make it work: "let him come and go, and appreciate him." Her surrender may gall some readers, but she and Joe are engaging characters, and Steel's expert plotting keeps the novel moving at a good pace. (Apr.)Forecast: This eagle will sit in its aerie atop the bestseller list.

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From Booklist

Steel's fifty-first novel has all the elements her fans crave--wealthy characters, lavish settings, and an opulent lifestyle. In December of 1974, Kate receives the quintessential dreaded phone call: her husband Joe's plane exploded, and no one survived. She is assailed with memories, beginning with the day they met some 33 years before at a debutante ball. Kate was only 17 but seemed much older as she was accustomed to such settings, while Joe at 29 was uncomfortable and only came at the request of his friend, Charles Lindbergh. Nonetheless, there is an instant rapport between them, and they exchange letters while Kate attends Radcliffe College. They realize that they're falling in love but restrain from commitment when WWII erupts and Joe is sent to England as a flying ace. When Joe comes back to the States to receive a medal, they consummate their love, but Joe is reluctant to get engaged. And so it goes. Joe is obsessed with flying and establishing his airline company, inducing a frustrated Kate to marry someone else, but Joe remains the love of her life and, well, there are no surprises here. It's a typical Steel soap opera that seems, oddly, to take the form of a male fantasy in which the woman is totally subservient to her macho flying man's needs and desires. Patty Engelmann
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