This standard romantic melodrama from prolific romance-novelist Danielle Steel features gorgeous leads, cute kids, tragic illness and death, a nasty custody battle with a ruthless villain, painful rebuilding, deeply-felt emotions, and beautiful settings.—John Sacksteder <[email protected]>

Home-loving New Yorker Bernie Fine is asked by his boss to run their new San Francisco department store. Initially stubborn, Bernie finally realizes he has no choice, but he is miserable in San Francisco. While floor-walking one day, he meets Jane, a little girl who has lost her mother. When they find the mother, Liz, Bernie is enchanted with her. They become involved, marry, and have their own son, Alexander, but not long afterward, Liz is diagnosed with Osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. After she dies, Bernie and Jane are distraught but manage to continue their relatively-peaceful life until Jane's no-good biological father blackmails Bernie for custody of Jane, then kidnaps her. After Bernie gets Jane back, they embark on a new life together in Northern California. Bernie begins to move on emotionally, and becomes involved with a beautiful doctor, but Jane is still loyal to her mother and can't accept this new woman. Will Bernie be forced to give up his new love, or will Jane realize that by loving her, Bernie doesn't love her mother any less?—Stacey Mitchell