Oliver Watson's world suddenly dissolves around him when Sarah, his wife of eighteen years, returns to Harvard to get her master's degree. Oliver is left on his own, with three children and a freedom he never wanted and doesn't completely understand. His family's needs and demands suddenly consume his life.
When Oliver's mother is diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease and dies soon thereafter, Oliver's father's life is changed as well. Braver than his son with less of a future before him, George Watson, at seventy-two, quickly embraces new relationships and, eventually, a new life. The sudden changes come as a shock to both father and son.
Ben, Oliver's oldest son, rejects his father and reaches outward, under the illusion that he is grown-up and can make it on his own. Melissa, the middle child, blames Oliver for her mother's desertion. And Sam, the "baby," is too shaken to deal with it at all. Now the only parent, Daddy must somehow cope this, his troubled family and explore a world of new responsibilities, new women, and new experiences.
Each of the three men must start a new life: Oliver in New York and then in Los Angeles with his children; once he faces the biggest change in his life; his widowed father with the woman next door; and seventeen-year-old Ben with his girlfriend and baby. Nothing is as it was before... nothing is as they once thought it would be. But in the end, different is better... different is more... for each of them—and especially for "Daddy."

Steel's captivating 25th novel will send her rocketing past the 125-million mark for books in print and satisfy avid fans with its splashy sentiment, loudly plucked heartstrings and boldly drawn, if superficially developed, cast. Oliver Watson is a successful, rather stolid, advertising executive with a beautiful wife, Sarah, three children, Ben, Melissa and Sam, and a house in suburban New York. But his paradise is teetering over an abyss: Sarah, who never wanted a conventional life, coldly abandons husband and kids to ``find herself'' by pursuing a master's degree at Harvard. Then Oliver's mother dies of Alzheimer's disease, leaving his 72-year-old father bereft, and 17-year-old Ben fathers a child and drops out of school. Oliver blames the unremittingly icy Sarah for every sorrow, yet initially refuses to get on with his life, even when his father points the way by finding a new love. Steel ( Star ; Zola ) is at the top of her bestselling form as she steers Oliver through a fearsome new world of single parenthood, modern women and radically changed sexual mores before winding up with a paean to family life and romance. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selection. (Nov.)

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