Jewels by Danielle Steel

The next book I am choosing to review is another book by Danielle Steel. I also found this book to be very light hearted and entertaining to read and enjoyed the historical context of this book.

Synopsis: This is a book about Sarah Whitfield. It starts out on her seventy-fifth birthday. She then tells the story of her life starting with her first marriage to Freddie Van Deering when she was nineteen years old in 1935. Sarah comes from a wealthy American family and lives in New York. After they get married, Freddie shows little interest in Sarah and their marriage and drinks too much and cheats on Sarah with prostitutes.

Sarah becomes pregnant and loses their baby, and she and Freddie eventually divorce. Her parents take her on a trip to Europe to try and lift her spirits and she meets William Whitfield, who is the Duke of Whitfield. Sarah and Whitfield fall in love and get engaged.

On their honeymoon, Sarah and William buy an old French chateau to fix up and live in. But not long after that, World War Two Starts and William joins the allied forces, leaving Sarah, their first child Philip, and their second child on the way in France. The Nazi forces take over the chateau but Sarah survives through all of this, and even after she finds out that William is missing in action, still keeps the hope that William is alive.

William returns to her and Sarah and William start buying jewels sold to them by poor war survivors and open their first Whitfield’s jewelry store in Paris and eventually open other branches in London and Rome. They have more children: Julian, Isabella, and Xavier. William dies after Xavier’s first birthday. Julian runs the Whitfield’s store in Paris, Isabella runs the one in Rome, Philip runs the one in London and Xavier also works in the family business.

Review:

After reading this book, I have several thoughts about this book. There are a couple themes I noticed after reading this book.

The first theme is the strength of family through hard times and good times and how the Whitfield family remained strong and united.

“As she looked at them, she thought of him, the life they had shared, the world they had built, the children they had loved, who had stepped out into the world on their own, stumbled and then righted themselves again. They were all strong, good, loving people. Some more than others, some were easier to understand or easier to love. But she loved all of them.”

What this quote says to me is that a family sticks together through good times and bad times and is always there for each other. I’m very blessed to have a strong, supportive family in which we do encourage and stand by each other, and love each other.

The other theme I noticed was the love Sarah and William have for each other, and how that love has carried them through the hard times of their lives.

“He brought out the best in her. He had given her everything, she frequently said, everything she had ever cared about, or loved, or truly needed.”

I think this type of love is the type of love every person desire, and I am very blessed to have found this type of love with my fiancé.