Everyone in Washington knows Madeleine and Jack Hunter. Maddy is an award-winning TV anchorwoman. Jack is the head of her network, an adviser to the President on media issues. To the world, theirs is a storybook marriage. Two brilliant careers. A long, loving partnership. But behind the locked doors of their lush Georgetown home, a very different story emerges. For as Maddy's career soars, a bitter edge has crept into Jack's words, a pattern of subtle put-downs, control, and jealousy that Maddy has always tried to ignore and deny. For Maddy, there are no bruises, no scars, only the daggers of fear, humiliation, and isolation. Their effect as powerful as the gun, the knife, or the fist, the wounds as deep. Through hard work, long years, and with Jack's help, Maddy has become a role model and a star. It seems impossible to believe that a woman the nation idolizes lives in degradation and fear. Only Maddy knows the terror in her heart. Her secrets are well kept, sometimes even from herself.

Maddy's journey to healing begins when the President's wife offers an extraordinary opportunity, the chance to join her newly formed Commission on Violence Against Women. There, Maddy hears chilling stories from terrified wives and girlfriends that sound eerily familiar. And there she comes to know Bill Alexander, a distinguished scholar and diplomat who also works on the commission. Bill suspects that something is terribly wrong in Maddy's marriage and begs her to open her eyes. And as Maddy slowly, painfully takes the first steps toward freedom, as she and Bill grow closer, a remarkable series of events begins to unfold...a stranger from Maddy's past suddenly reappears...White House headlines bring the nation to a standstill...and a devastating tragedy occurs, forcing Maddy to realize just how much she has lost and how much has been taken from her--her confidence, her trust, her self-respect. As she is faced with the most difficult choice of her life, Maddy's extraordinary journey comes to a close, and with it comes a strength she never knew she had and a gift she never could have expected--a gift that will change her life forever.

Set against a vivid backdrop of world-shattering events, Journey is a book about abuse, in its subtlest forms. The powerful effects that last a lifetime. With wisdom and compassion, bestselling novelist Danielle Steel reminds us that no one is exempt from the effects of this devastating disease, which crosses social borders, has no respect for money, power, or success. But at its core, Journey is a book about hope, about change, and about daring to be free.

Marital abuse in its most insidious form is the focus of Steel's (The House on Hope Street, etc.) dependable page-turner, her 50th novel. To the outside world, Washington, D.C., television coanchor Maddy Hunter appears to have an enviable life. Married to her boss, former football star-cum-media mogul Jack Hunter, she's got brains, beauty, a prestigious job, a glamorous marriage and all the trappings of success. Yet Maddy--whose current husband saved her from a physically abusive former spouse--is trapped in another relationship that's as devastating and destructive as her first. Jack doesn't hit Maddy, but he subjects her to mind games, put-downs and constant undermining; it's obvious psychological abuse to observers, though not to Maddy. Using Maddy's participation in a commission on violence against women chaired by the nation's First Lady, Steel explicates the various forms of spousal abuse, and although the text occasionally gets preachy, the desperate plight of women who remain in destructive situations is clearly delineated. Meanwhile, Maddy warily builds a friendship with Bill Alexander, a fellow committee member and former ambassador to Colombia whose wife was killed by kidnappers. Maddy's experience interacting with women like herself and the appearance of a daughter she gave up for adoption as an unwed teenager (and whom Jack forbids her to see) both have an impact. Still, it takes a life-threatening event to convince her finally to change her life and accept the gift of a good man's love. Steel has her formula down pat, and she executes her story with her usual smooth pacing. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

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