Recently I read Danielle Steel''s novel "Sunset in St. Tropez". I began reading at a time when I missed my circle of
friends and were remembering the fun-filled ups and downs we had shared together.
This book was refreshingly on the same lines and gave a lot of importance to the dynamics of expectations and evolution of these expectations that affect
friendships.
The story begins with an overview of three
couples who are great friends and they observe a routine of spending their New Year''s Eve together. There is the impeccably classy Diana Morrison, her husband of thirty-two years, Eric, and their best friends, Pascale Donnally, the French fiery beauty who doesn''t miss out a chance to visit Paris and John Donnally whose constant jokes about his French wife and mother-in-law weave humor into the plot. There is also Anne and Robert Smith who are older than the other two couples and
happy as grandparents . The future seems rosy as the couples plan on renting a
villa together in the South of France.
But just two weeks after New Year''s, Robert Smith suffers a sudden, unexpected loss when his dear wife Anne dies of a heart attack. Convinced that a change of scenery is just what Robert needs, Diana, Eric, Pascale and John urge him to join them for vacation in August in a stunning villa that Pascale had booked for all of them to holiday.
But the stunning villa turns out to be non-existent thanks to the mostly-naked would-be housekeeper whose lack of clothes is her fashion statement. While Pascale grapples with the struggle of making the place turn out decently presentable for her friends, Robert invites a guest - a lovely, much-younger film actress whom both Diana and Pascale hate on sight, but the men are dazzled. The two women ignore her, treat her as though she were nonexistent and ignore her completely. They are sure that Robert is going to be taken for a ride by the star and they feel resentful that he could so easily forget their dear friend Anne.
With the last days of summer fast approaching, each couple finds themselves changing toward each other in unexpected ways through difficult times. How these friends learn to recognize their mistakes, how they support each other and take everything in their stride as part of
life is what makes their holiday and the reading a sweet tour of
relationships for all of us.
Happy Reading!
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