This was not my favorite Danielle Steele book but I still enjoyed it. This is about 2 estranged sisters and how they make their way back to each other and what they each have been through in their lives.

When I first started reading the book I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it. It was sad and kind of depressing the way Melissa was living her life—she was giving up on life. It took a turn when a young man affected her life in a way that made her take a hard look at her life as it was. Things in her life started changing for the better and she adjusted to the changes in a good way. I enjoyed the book and as it progressed I didn’t want to put it down. I would recommend this book to others. Another good Danielle Steel book.

A touching story by Danielle Steel.. The characters and their unique relationships kept me turning the pages.. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC copy !

If you love Danielle Steel books you will enjoy this story. It flows easily from scene to scene as all her books do. Melissa has led a life that had many tragic events, loss of her son, loss of her daughter, what she perceived as abandonment of her sister, and the cruelty of her mother's treatment of her. After her son died her marriage fell apart and she becomes a recluse, caring only about the house she is restoring. Slowly things in her life change, until she is forced to face her past, and move forward.
Heartfelt story of love, loss and forgiveness.
I received an advance copy of this story in exchange for my honest review.

Heart wrenching story of love, loss, grief, and reconciliation. A classic read from Danielle Steele that doesn't disappoint. Well written and engaging. You'll want to read Finding Ashley in a single sitting.

Thanks to NetGalley for an arc copy for a honest review. From her first books, I’ve always love Danielle Steel. Her writing her books have family tragedy and hope and in the end things seem to work out for the best. Finding Ashley is a stories about a mother who thought she lost it all it’s beautifully written.

Absolutely loved this book.
Melissa, is one tough lady. After one tragedy and a failed marriage. She distances herself from others. Thinking that renovating a house. Will keep her occupied. Until one horrible fire threatens her well being. She lets bygones go and makes contact with her sister. While visiting with her sister she lets something slip. Hattie, takes it upon herself to do one good deed for her sister. With that one decision, the sisters come full circle. Lies, secrets and decisions will help the sisters to become a unit once again.

When two sisters that were estranged from each other begin to mend their relationship it brings together more than just the two of them. This is a story of love, loss, healing, and finding the will and ability to love again. It is a journey of discovery and strength while this journey is healing it also raises questions of doubt especially as it pertains to the Catholic Church and the convents for single pregnant girls whose families wanted to avoid a scandal. Danielle Steel does a masterful job of bringing together the past and the present. This truly a heart-strings tugging bestseller.

This is a typical Danielle Steel. It is an enjoyable story that you can lose yourself in. Melissa lost her son to cancer and has just been going thru the motions until her life is shook up. This is a story about love, loss, life and death. I enjoyed the story and liked the characters. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Danielle Steele at her best exploring how our life path takes us in many different directions the joy and heartbreak that come along.

FINDING ASHLEY
BY DANIELLE STEEL

This is all about during the 1980's how when young women were pregnant, in this case sixteen; How young teenagers were sent to Ireland to have the baby and how the church was involved. They would charge the pregnant girl's family a hefty amount of money to deliver the baby and quickly removed them from the biological mother. All of these babies were also arranged with adoptive parents regardless of the biological mother's felt. The Church would also extort a large sum of money from the adoptive parents. Basically, there were baby mills. It was very painful for the pregnant teenager's both physically and emotionally. Usually the parents of the pregnant girl forced this on their teen daughter's and were embarrassed so they made up a lie that their daughter's were studying abroad while the pregnancy was taking place. They forbid their daughter's to keep their babies. The crime in all of this was the church making all of this money and then they burned the records deliberately. This would make it impossible for both the biological mother's when they were adults to locate their child. This was a double edged sword for the adult children who when grown went to search for their mothers.

In this story a woman named Melissa was a successful writer who after losing her only son to death was unable to find her daughter. She has been estranged with her younger sister Hattie whom she acted like a mother to after her cruel mother died while Hattie was young. Hattie decides that she doesn't want to fulfill her life long dream of becoming an actress but instead chooses to be a nun in a convent. You can easily understand why Melissa distanced herself from Hattie after her the trauma she endured as a victim of the church. Hattie decides to secretly travel to try to find out information about the baby Melissa was forced to give up when she was sixteen year's old. Of course, Hattie can't locate the information from the address where Melissa gave birth since all of the records were destroyed. The nuns that still live there don't remember and the baby mills no longer exist. Hattie catches a break and meets a former nun who left the church because she lost faith in the church because of her participation in the baby mills.

Hattie meets the former nun and reads her book on the subject and locates Melissa's daughter named Michaela Ashley who lives in LA with her family. To say anymore would be getting into spoiler territory. There is so much more to the story. I felt like the writing in this book was repeating too much of the same information.

Publication Date: April 27, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, Danielle Steel and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#Finding Ashley #DanielleSteel #RandomHousePublishingGroupBallantine #NetGalley

Fans of Danielle Steel will find another fantastic story in Finding Ashley. A moving story of a birth mother searching for her biological daughter and a sister searching for the meaning of her faith following an explosive revelation.

Steel incorporates two current topics in her novel Finding Ashley: scandals of the Catholic Church and the Me Too movement. Readers don’t get the backstory of the two main characters, Melissa and Hattie, until later, but it was fairly easy to predict what both would be. Steel doesn’t have elaborate plots in her novels and that’s not what I look for when I read them. The chapters go by in a flash and the story keeps,moving. My favorite character was Norm. He was a carpenter and hunky. He wastes no time taking what he wants. After being very patient. There is not a lot of character conflict which made the read peaceful. The ending was decent.

Another great Danielle Steel novel.

Melissa and Hattie are sisters, born 6 years apart to a devout Catholic mother and an alcoholic father. They grew up in the 80s when Catholics frowned upon abortion and parents sent their teenage daughters away who were "knocked up", mostly to church run home for unwed mothers. Melissa found herself pregnant at age 16 and her parents sent her to Ireland to have her child who was ripped from her arms after she was born. The only thing she knew was that her name was Ashley.

Fast forward. Melissa and Hattie are now adults. Their parents died soon after Melissa returns from Ireland. Melissa raises Hattie until they are both out of college and on their own. They are estranged as Hattie has become a nun after a trip to Los Angeles where she auditions to be an actress.

The book set now 18 years later. Melissa was an accomplished writer and divorced after the devastating loss of her son, Robbie. She lives in the Berkshires renovating a Victorian house. She is gruff and terse and keeps to herself. Hattie finally comes up to visit Melissa and Melissa tells her the truth about why she does not like the Church and Hattie's chosen vocation. Hattie goes to Ireland to try to help her sister. While there, Hattie meets a former nurse at the home where Melissa was and Hattie gets some information that helps her find her niece.

Hattie goes to LA and with some sleuthing, she finds her niece, now named Michaela Ashley. Although nervous, they all meet and everyone is comfortable with each other. Even Michaela's adopted mom, actress Marla, enjoys the time with Michaela.

But then another story rocks the country - producers and directors are being charged with rape and assault and battery. This hits home for Hattie, because she never told Melissa why she joined the convent after her trip to LA. She was raped by a producer who had her in for an "audition" and decided to hide in the convent. Hattie is now questioning her vocation, and decides she needs to leave the church.

Many relevant stories, grasped right out of the news. It was amazing to read. Danielle Steel writes from the heart on these relevant topics. The characters are believable, and I found myself routing for great happy endings for all of the characters.

Wow! This was a wonderful book! I would recommend this to everyone. It’s a story about a family, and how the mom gives the child up in an adoption and eventually finds her. There’s more to the story, but it’s a great read. It’s not just the story line for this, but also there’s other story lines in this.

Finding Ashley by Danielle Steel
This book I did not want to put down. Took me two days to read this. Two sisters that have been through a lot.
Things have pulled these two apart. They find their way back to each other.
highly recommend this book.

This book was an easy read and I finished in 2 days. No huge suspense angles to keep up with but enough characters and issues to keep me engrossed. As with most Danielle Steel books, you can figure out the outcome halfway through the book although this one did have some nice twists to it. A relaxing book that will not stress you although it did have some major social issues it addressed. Definitely worth the read time.

Two sisters living with tremendous pain choose two stark but comforting paths to heal. Each content on the surface until life pushes them to confront their life choices and resolve the incidents that made them choose their solitary life styles. One works with her hands and lovingly restores a house into a sanctuary. The other lives a contemplative life in service to others. A decision that has kept her sister Melissa up at night. A fire that almost destroys years of painstaking work has Hattie reaching out to Melissa and so begins a renewal of bonds and a journey that will take each sister to a place they could only imagine. A touch of history , a sister's love, a miracle of love. Happy reading

A great story of a family reunited. Melissa and her sister Hattie after years of separation come together on a quest to find the daughter Melissa. Was forced to give up at birth. As the two work through their quest for. Ashley they regain there sister closeness. A great read!

Find this review and others like it at https://aravenclawlibraryx.wordpress.com

tw: terminal illness, child death, extreme grief, cheating, parental death, alcoholism, toxic relationships, arson, forced adoption, use of word Indian, rape (graphic description), cohesion of sexual acts, helicopter crash resulting in death

A special thank you goes to Netgalley and Random House publishing for allowing me to read this eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ah yes. Another Danielle Steel book. This probably won’t be a very long review since I’ve read so many Danielle Steel books and once you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. I am so hooked on her books. I just can’t help myself. Whenever I see a new DS book, I just have to read it. No matter how many times I say I’m done reading her stuff for a while, I just keep coming back for more.

Okay, onto the review. This book wasn’t horrible. It was different then what her other books normally have but I could still see a lot of the same plot points that she uses in a lot of her books. Child death, successful woman with complicated family dynamics, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to know what to expect but at the same time, it gets old quick.

While the plot was slightly different, it was still the same thing I see out of Danielle Steel. The character, Melissa, was hard and sharp after several traumatic experiences in her life. She’s estranged from her sister but due to a turn of events, she reconnects with her and her sister helps her change her life. Happily ever after.

I know I’m making this book sound incredibly basic but it was. DS does a lot of telling and not showing so I was basically told these plot points instead of them just happening organically. That is always my biggest complaint with DS and it will never change.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad book. It was enjoyable and I finished it pretty quickly. I think it will do well in sales and I know a lot of DS fans will enjoy this latest book from her.