Mixed Blessings: A Novel

After the wedding of Diana Goode and Andrew Douglas, Diana teases that they will make a baby on their honeymoon. But long afterward, she is still not pregnant. As Diana and Andrew wait out each month only to be bitterly disappointed, they are forced to question just how much they are willing to go through to have a baby.

Charlie Winwood dreams of a house filled with children. His bride, party-girl actress Barbie Mason, has other ideas. When he discovers he is sterile, Charlie has to rethink his deepest values – and his marriage to a woman who shares none of his dreams.

After ten years of living together, Pilar Graham, a prominent Santa Barbara attorney, marries Judge Brad Coleman, who is nineteen years her senior and father of two grown children. They are happy with their comfortable life together, a deux, until Pilar begins to wonder if she will someday regret not having a baby with Brad. Are they crazy to begin now – with Brad about to become a grandfather and Pilar with a busy career, and in her early forties, possibly putting herself at risk?

Through the lives of these couples, Danielle Steel shows us the mixed blessingswe face as we build our families and live our modern lives. She touches us with the triumphant people who prevail, their victories, their defeats, their tragedies and joys, their compromises, their lives.