Journey
A Novel
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4.4 • 115 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Everyone knows Madeleine and Jack Hunter. Maddy is an award-winning TV anchorwoman. Jack is the head of her network. To the world, theirs is a storybook marriage. But behind the doors of their lush Georgetown home a different story emerges.
Maddy has always tried to deny Jack’s subtle put-downs, control, and jealousy. She has no bruises, only the daggers of fear, humiliation, and isolation — as powerful as the gun or the fist, the wounds as deep. It seems impossible that a woman the nation idolizes lives in degradation and fear. Maddy’s secrets are well kept, even from herself.
Maddy’s healing begins when she joins the First Lady’s Commission on Violence Against Women. There, she hears eerily familiar stories from terrified wives and girlfriends. And there she comes to know Bill Alexander, a distinguished diplomat. Bill suspects that something is terribly wrong in Maddy’s marriage and begs her to open her eyes.
As she takes the first steps toward freedom, a remarkable series of events unfolds ... a stranger from Maddy’s past reappears ... White House headlines bring the nation to a standstill ... and a devastating tragedy forces Maddy to realize how much has been taken from her. Faced with the most difficult choice of her life, Maddy finds a strength she never knew she had and a gift that will change her life forever.
With wisdom and compassion, bestselling novelist Danielle Steel reminds us that no one is exempt from the effects of abuse, in its subtlest forms. But at its core, Journey is a book about hope, about change, and about daring to be free.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marital abuse in its most insidious form is the focus of Steel's (The House on Hope Street, etc.) dependable page-turner, her 50th novel. To the outside world, Washington, D.C., television coanchor Maddy Hunter appears to have an enviable life. Married to her boss, former football star-cum-media mogul Jack Hunter, she's got brains, beauty, a prestigious job, a glamorous marriage and all the trappings of success. Yet Maddy--whose current husband saved her from a physically abusive former spouse--is trapped in another relationship that's as devastating and destructive as her first. Jack doesn't hit Maddy, but he subjects her to mind games, put-downs and constant undermining; it's obvious psychological abuse to observers, though not to Maddy. Using Maddy's participation in a commission on violence against women chaired by the nation's First Lady, Steel explicates the various forms of spousal abuse, and although the text occasionally gets preachy, the desperate plight of women who remain in destructive situations is clearly delineated. Meanwhile, Maddy warily builds a friendship with Bill Alexander, a fellow committee member and former ambassador to Colombia whose wife was killed by kidnappers. Maddy's experience interacting with women like herself and the appearance of a daughter she gave up for adoption as an unwed teenager (and whom Jack forbids her to see) both have an impact. Still, it takes a life-threatening event to convince her finally to change her life and accept the gift of a good man's love. Steel has her formula down pat, and she executes her story with her usual smooth pacing.
Customer Reviews
The good, the bad and the ugly
Seems like there was a lot of the bad and ugly! Luckily Maddy survived it all and turned it around. She left The bad/ugly man and moved on with a new family she didn’t expect, and hopefully they live happy ever after!
Awesome!
This book is a nonstop thriller from beginning to end. I was reluctant at first
when I started it , but Danielle really delivers. A must read for steel fans.