Matters of the Heart Pdf Summary Reviews By Danielle Steel

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Matters of the Heart Pdf Summary

In this spellbinding blend of suspense and human drama, Danielle Steel tells a powerful and unusual story of one woman’s journey from darkness into light, as she fights to escape a mesmerizing sociopath who holds her in his thrall. . . .

Top photographer Hope Dunne has known joy and heartbreak, and finds serenity through the lens of her camera. Content in her SoHo loft, she isn’t looking for a man or excitement. But these things find her when she flies to London to photograph one of the world’s most celebrated writers.

Finn O’Neill exudes warmth and a boyish charm. Enormously successful, he is a perfect counterpoint to Hope’s quiet, steady grace—and he’s taken instantly by her. He courts her as no one ever has before, whisking her away to his palatial, isolated Irish estate.

Hope finds it all, and him, irresistible. But soon cracks begin to appear in his stories: Gaps in his history, a few innocent lies, and bouts of jealousy unnerve her. Suddenly Hope is both in love and deeply in doubt, and ultimately frightened of the man she loves. Is it possible that this adoring man is hiding something even worse? The spell cast by a brilliant sociopath has her trapped in his web, too confused and dazzled to escape, as he continues to tighten his grip on her.

Danielle Steel delivers an unforgettable tale of danger and obsessive love, as she explores the dark secrets that sometimes lurk just below the surface of ordinary lives, writing about men and women and their courage to prevail even in the face of evil.

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Matters of the Heart Review

Sissel M. Østdahl

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent about taboo matter!

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2009

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” Falling in love with a sociopath was one of those experiences you never forgot, if you were lucky enough to survive at all.” (ref. page 326)

It all takes place among the rich and privileged, as so often in Danielle Steel’s books, but for this story it is actually an advantage.

The matter of involvment with a sociopath is not an easily accepted topic, particularly not so among the educated upper and middle classes. But nowhere are sociopaths likely to do more damage than when they perform their mostly phsycological evils to proud victims in golden cages. Victims staying silent, knowing that their stories will seem too crazy to be believed by any sane person. Among people with less or no education sociopaths are more visible, since their methods are usually of a more physical kind, leaving their victims literally hurt and bleeding.

The first part of the book tells a beautiful story about a coup de foudre between two people in their forties who connect perfectly and plan to get married after having known each other for only four months.

Well recognized photograher Hope Dunne gets an assignment to do a portrait of famous author Finn O’Neill. They fall head over heels in love and soon Hope shares her time between her New York loft and Finn’s impressive ancestral home in Ireland. Everything is bliss and simply too good to be true.

After six perfectly happy months, the surface is however starting to crack and Hope’s life is soon alternating between joy and suspicion, and slowly turning into terror.

The nightmare this all to perfect love story soon turns into, is scary and as the book says, hard to believe unless one has experienced it oneself.

It is a bold subject Danielle Steel has chosen for this book, which starts out as such an easy read and develops into a scary nightmare very seldom neither written or talked about.

Readers may find it all unbelievable and rather crazy, but “Matters of The Heart” is straight forward and scaringly to the point.

Grace1120

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretty unbelievable

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2010

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I’ve read and/or listened to many Danielle Steele books over the years. I take her stories in spells – sometimes stepping away from them for years, then returning to them again. Let’s be honest, they’re fairly predictable. You know they’ll either take place in San Francisco, France, New York or London. That never changes. You know it will be a happy ending. But at least you can relate to and become interested in the characters in her novels. Many times I’ve thoroughly enjoyed her books from beginning to end but this one was the worst. As a side note, if you listen to books on CD regularly as I do, you come to appreciate the phenomenal readers that are out there for these books on CD. Danielle tends to choose men to read her novels which is fine, but this one was HORRIBLE. He sounded like a very old man which felt strange and awkward to me and he also used very little emotion in his voice and read very slowly and monotone. I’m listening to another book on CD right now and the reader is breathtakingly good. For those of us who rely on that, it’s a gift when you get it.

The characters of Hope and Finn were just not believable at all. I know I didn’t form any kind of attachment at all to Hope or Finn which made this story even less believable. No woman would ever stay with a man as long as she did. He showed signs of being a sociopath in the early part of the book, then we had to endure waiting and waiting and waiting while Hope pondered, considered and wondered what on earth she should do next. He would slam her against the wall and then she’d tell him she loved him two hours later? I think not. There was no thread of a realistic human experience. A reader wants to root for the character(s) but in this story, by the end, I didn’t care what happened to either of them. That has never happened in any book I’ve ever read. Literally 90% of the book was about Finn’s Sociopathic behavior with no character development of any other except Hope and Finn. It was torture. Then it felt like two seconds before the end of the book, she suddenly hints that a life with this briefly introduced male character and his daughters is going to be happily ever after for Hope? Hope goes through absolute hell, goes to India to find herself, does it in a heartbeat, comes back home and jumps right into a new relationship 5 minutes after returning home? They sail off into the sunset and BAM! the book is finished? Just really strange. It felt like a rushed ending and certainly left me feeling cheated. Several times I considered shutting the book on CD off and just forgetting the whole thing, but when you pay a fair amount of money for a book on CD, you want to at least give it your all.

Choose another Danielle Steele book. This one isn’t worth the money. An all around bad experience for me.

Chelle29

4.0 out of 5 stars TRIGGERED

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2019

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This was my first read by Danielle Steele, it was recommended by a member of a group I’m in for people recovering from narcissistic abuse. Sociopaths and narcs have very similar traits, you blink your eye, you’ll miss the difference.
As for the story, It was really hard for me to give an unbiased critique because of personal experiences, but he story was well written and it is a page turner.

About Danielle Steel Author Of Matters of the Heart pdf Book

Danielle Steel Author Of Matters of the Heart pdf Book has been hailed as one of the world’s bestselling authors, with almost a billion copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include All That Glitters, Royal, Daddy’s Girls, The Wedding Dress, The Numbers Game, Moral Compass, Spy, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Expect a Miracle, a book of her favorite quotations for inspiration and comfort; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.