“She had no idea where the future would lead her or what it would look like, but whatever happened, she was determined to survive it.�
― Danielle Steel, The Duchess

This was a quick breezy read. It is about a young bereft girl. Betrayed by family members, she must make her own way in the world. She picks an unusual way to do it.

One thing I do not like are book snobs. I know people who flat out refuse to read Danielle Steel because of her reputation for writing romance novels. I think book snobs lose out on alot of opportunities to read good literature simply because they judge themselves and others to harshly when it comes to their reading choices.

I read everything and that includes the occasional Steel book. While I moderately enjoyed this and loved the historical aspect of the book, I had a tough time buying into the premise. That is not to say the book is bad. It isn't. It keeps you reading and I liked Angelique, finding her gutsy and interesting. But I have enjoyed other Steel books more and much of what happens in this book made me a bit skeptical.

So I would say a solid 3 star read. Not bad but not my favorite of Steel. ( )

This book was horrible!! I felt that the author needed to repeat herself over and over, like she forgot where she was in the story. I just couldn't/bother reading the rest of this book! ( )

Borrow the start of Pride and Prejudice, but make everything as much worse than that as you can. Make sure you keep all the voices modern so that your readers won't find themselves in a strange culture. Decide to make your heroine fall in love, but forget to show any signs of it. (It should be enough to just repeat again and again that it happened.) Throw in lots of juicy but unimportant details about minor characters to paint them as black as you can. And have everyone run around in the final pages singing, "Happy end! Happy end!"

Even with this poor recipe, Danielle Steel can't write a totally awful book, but she comes very close. She also doesn't explain how, if there is an entail so that her father can't leave anything to her, (not anything?) her brother is then able to sell the property a few years later. Certainly it is still entailed. But let's not let little historical niggles bother us. ( )

Interesting book about the unfairness of the treatment of women in the 1800's and how one privileged woman overcame it and sought redemption in the end. ( )

Will beauty and intelligence alone allow Angelique to survive after her father dies and her half-brothers cast her aside? Fleeing to Paris and starting a questionable business venture may be just the answer.