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Irresistible Forces |
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I rresistible Forces byDanielle Steele Delacorte Press 372 pages, 1999 ISBN 0385319606 Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart Danielle Steele’s forty-seventh novel, IRRESISTIBLE FORCES, is a quick read. Steve and Meredith Whitman have been married for fourteen years. Each has a demanding and consuming job. Steve is a physician in-high-demand. Meredith, an investment banker, holds a partnership in a high-profile Wall Street firm. Their marriage is built on friendship, not passion. The nagging problem in their relationship is children. Steve desperately wants at least one, preferably a whole house full, but Meredith keeps putting it off. She isn’t ready to give up her career. Enter the antagonist, Callan Dow, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur who has chosen Meredith’s firm to take his company public. The handsome Mr. Dow is divorced and raising his three kids all alone. Callan and Meredith begin working long, hard hours side by side, to make the initial public offering of his medical technology company a success. The two take the offering on the road, and it is wildly successful. They soon fall in love and begin a clandestine affair. Meredith spends more and more time on the West Coast, and less and less time in New York City with Steve. She begins to join the Dows on family outings, enjoys their hospitality and becomes increasingly attached to the children. Callan offers Meredith the position of Chief Financial Officer for his company. She takes the offer to Steve, who agrees that he can get a job anywhere, and with little planning or foresight, Meredith accepts Callan’s offer. Steve and Meredith plan to be together as husband and wife again within six months. However, Steve’s job falls through and the months stretch along endlessly. Steve spends more and more time at the hospital. He begins having quick dinners with Anna, the doctor hired to replace him. Soon, those two are having their own affair. Guilt-ridden, Steve hops on a place to San Francisco and wants to re-start his life with Meredith, with or without a job. Meredith feels she owes Steve a chance to recapture their intimacy, but both merely feel awkward. Like most of Steele’s stories, it’s formulaic and predictable, but it serves her well, keeping her on the bestseller list for many years now. As a writer myself, what always fascinates me about Steele’s work is the research involved to make the story work. She had to learn the investment banking business enough to make Meredith seem like a real-life woman. And like all her books, IRRESISTIBLE FORCES comes alive with heartfelt characters. |
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