Title: The High Notes
Author: Danielle Steel
Publisher: Macmillan
Pages: 320
Price: 525
In my late teens and twenties, when romance formed a major part of one’s reading diet along with thrillers, the name of Danielle Steel was synonymous with a guaranteed session of words spun skilfully, taking the reader into a world of Steel’s choosing – usually glamorous, generally moneyed. Quite often the protagonist would have gone through struggle, poverty and hardship, but we were not given a guided tour of those portions. It’s the glam and glitz that we were meant to consume – and consume we did! We would ask one another if we had read the latest Steel title; favourites were discussed and compared; and a new Danielle Steel coming out meant a scramble for the shelves of the circulating library (a disappearing relic, alas).
So when I learnt about this title and got the chance to review it, I briefly leaped back into my youth and thought, why not give it a shot? I’m glad to report that this Danielle Steel is just what one would expect. Mind you, the characters in her books are all different – varied backgrounds, interesting milieux, exciting plots and a central character who grabs our attention.
This is Iris, a young woman, a singer born with a brilliant voice, whose mother abandons her and whose father exploits her talent. Determined to escape her miserable existence, she finds herself a manager and starts performing professionally, only to find that the manager too is a shark.
Fleeing yet again, with a little help from her friends, Iris makes her way to New York, armed with a name, a shaky reference, and of course her magnificent voice. Having charmed a reputed and well-placed agent, Iris finally gets her due and becomes a star in her own right.
But a sudden tragedy strikes – the kind you might hear about in the news any day, actually – and Iris has to grapple with a new set of problems.
But in true Steel style, she wields her will and conquers all. Wait, isn’t it love that conquers all? Sure – and Iris finds love, too, because it wouldn’t be a Danielle Steel otherwise, would it?
The High Notes is reassuringly familiar territory. Enjoy!
