Once in a Lifetime

Ugh. I picked this up from a Little Free Library in my neighborhood during a time when I needed a quick distraction. This was my first Danielle Steel novel, and it was distractingly bad, so mission accomplished, I guess. I'm not just being snarky about bestselling authors; if this novel is representative of Steel's work, several dozen of them are worth one by Mary Higgins Clark, which used to be some of my favorite beach reads. The plot was a foregone conclusion, and the characters were one-note and boring. In fairness to Steel, however, this is a particularly difficult climate in which to attempt to swallow her approach to gender (e.g., “She looked up at him again and for a mad moment she wanted to fold herself into his arms, to feel the safety she had once felt, protected by a man.”), so that's a big part of what I found so noxious. Lesson learned!