All my life I had been a somewhat skittish person, nervous about unusual or ominous-looking people, frightened when drunks or homeless people approached me in the street. How about some other project? Working with children maybe - I was good at that. ''trying to pretend that I hadn't heard that message clearly in my head. and it was during her prayers that she heard God asking her to help the homeless. Shortly after that, Steel, who is deeply religious, was praying. Perhaps under the stress of this, her marriage then disintegrated. Six months later he made another, and this time succeeded. In the grip of a deep depression, aged 18, he made four unsuccessful suicide attempts. She has nine children, but one of them, a greatly beloved son, was bipolar. Steel didn't start her work out of sympathy for the homeless, but rather it was via a sad and unusual route. It was only when I heard of this particular book - dealing with her work with homeless people in San Francisco, that my interest was piqued. The real Steel is a bit more complicated.” -San Francisco Chronicleĭanielle Steel is an outstandingly popular novelist, but her books don't appeal to me, so as far as I was concerned she was an unknown entity. “Most assume that Steel’s life is as glamorous as her fiction. is candid and honest about her own private life in a way we’ve never seen before.” -Books for Better Living The mega-selling, notoriously private author. “ moving call for action.” -Kirkus Reviews Determined to supply the homeless with the basic necessities to keep them alive, she ends up giving them something far more a voice.īy turns candid and inspirational, Danielle Steel’s A Gift of Hope is a true act of advocacy and love. She offers achingly acute portraits of the people she met along the way-and issues a heartfelt call for more effective action to aid this vast, deprived population.

In this unflinchingly honest and deeply moving memoir, the famously private author speaks out publicly for the first time about her work among the most desperate members of our society. Now she is speaking to bring attention to their plight. She sought no publicity for her efforts and remained anonymous throughout. She worked anonymously, visiting the “cribs” of the city’s most vulnerable citizens under cover of darkness, distributing food, clothing, bedding, tools, and toiletries. In A Gift of Hope, she shows us how she transformed that pain into a campaign of service that enriched her life beyond what she could imagine.įor eleven years, Danielle Steel took to the streets with a small team to help the homeless of San Francisco. In her powerful memoir His Bright Light, #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel opened her heart to share the devastating story of the loss of her beloved son.

A Gift of Hope by Danielle Steel