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Book Description

This million-copy bestseller in hardcover spent three months on the "New York Times" bestseller list. When Granny Dan dies, all that remains is a box containing an old pair of satin toe shoes, a gold locket, and a stack of letters. Her legacy is waiting to be discovered by the granddaughter who loved her but never really knew her. Author Web site.

Synopsis:

In my eyes she had always been old, always been mine, always been Granny Dan. But in another time, another place, there had been dancing, people, laughter, love. . . . She had had another life before she came to us, long before she came to me. . . .

She was the cherished grandmother who sang songs in Russian, loved to roller-skate, and spoke little of her past. But when Granny Dan died, all that remained was a box wrapped in brown paper, tied with string. Inside, an old pair of satin toe shoes, a gold locket, and a stack of letters tied with ribbon. It was her legacy, her secret past, waiting to be discovered by the granddaughter who loved her but never really knew her. It was a story waiting to be told. . . .

The year was 1902. A new century was dawning as a motherless young girl arrived at a ballet school in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the age of seven. By age seventeen, Danina Petroskova had become a great ballerina, a favorite of the Czar and Czarina, who welcomed her into the heart of the Imperial family. But events both near and far away shook the ground upon which she danced. A war, an extraordinary man, and a devastating illness altered the course of her life. And when revolution shattered Russia, Danina Petroskova was forced to make a heartbreaking choice--as the world around her was about to change forever.

Granny Dan is about the magic of history. In it, Danielle Steel reminds us how little we know of those who came before us--and how, if we could only glimpse into their early lives, and see who they once were, there is so much we would understand and learn. For in this extraordinary novel, a simple box, filled with mementos from a grandmother, offers the greatest legacy of all: an unexpected gift of a life transformed, a long-forgotten history of youth and beauty, love and dreams.

Amazon.com

For over a decade, young Danina Petroskova has known no life but that of the ballet and her mentor Madame Markova. When a deathly illness steals her from the stage, the young dancer is inconsolable, and, desperate to speed her recovery, Madame Markova agrees to hand Danina over to the talented Dr. Nikolai Obrajensky for treatment. Convalescing with the Romanovs at the Tsarskoe Selo palace, Danina learns to live in and love the world beyond the ballet. And while grateful for Nikolai's companionship, she is startled by the intense emotions growing inside her for the married doctor. Drawn to Danina, Nikolai cannot ignore the passion between them either, and the strength of their love quickly overpowers their resistance. Soon Madame Markova and Nikolai's wife remind them of their previous obligations, and as the Revolution hovers on the horizon, the two must make a decision that will change their lives forever.

As if a romance set in the twilight years of czarist Russia doesn't have enough intrinsic pathos, Danielle Steel takes great care to give her hero and heroine the bittersweet combination of incomparable virtue and external duties. When the young prima ballerina and the married doctor meet, they are drawn to the corresponding sense of integrity and duty in each other. However, when love and duty conflict, the struggle is never easy.

Maestro Steel knows where the heartstrings are, and she plays them with her reliable talents. While students of history may cringe at the simplified approach to the historical period, readers just looking for a good time have found it. With the tough-but-loving mother figure, the ill-but-lovable Prince Alexander, the borrowed ball gowns, and the emotional grand jeté, this book has everything a TV movie needs except a small, cuddly pet. Put your feet up, set aside your spoilsport logic, and enjoy this novel for what it is: a classic romance.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Nancy R.E. O'Brien

From Publishers Weekly

In a fable compact enough to be swallowed in a single gulp, the prolific Steel (Bittersweet) offers a granddaughter's tribute to Danina Petroskova, "Granny Dan," a Russian immigrant who left the glamorous world of the St. Petersburg Ballet and lived thereafter as a Vermont housewife. The unnamed narrator always loved her grandmother, with her elegant braided hair, roller skates and soft Russian accent. Granny Dan rarely speaks of her life in Russia before the revolution, but when she dies, at almost 90, the narrator inherits a pair of ballet shoes and a packet of love letters that tell the dramatic story of her former existence. Committed at age seven to the ballet, in her teens Danina becomes a prima ballerina who enchants the czar and czarina, becoming the royal children's boon companion. Stricken by influenza at 19, Danina's life is saved by Czarevitch Alexei's physician, Nikolai Obrajensky, with whom she falls passionately in love. This fairy tale is fully outfitted with dreamy details such as ermine-trimmed gowns, covered sleighs and royal balls in glittering palaces. The historical technicalities are glossed over: in this book the Russian czar is a nice man who let the revolution go too far because he wanted his people to express their feelings. The love story is pure melodrama, with Nikolai a princely man married to a "dreadful Englishwoman," and the couple tormented by their unquenchable passions, lofty joys and ultimate tragedy. Steel doesn't unfold the plot so much as restate the same point: that Granny Dan led an extraordinary life of romance and heartbreak; this slim confection holds few surprises in telling the Cinderella story in reverse.

From Booklist

"Granny Dan seemed to be made up of air and fairy dust and angel wings, all things magical and luminous and graceful," says the unnamed female narrator in the prologue of Steel's latest, rushed-through-production novel. A woman who wore funny hats and black dresses and roller-skated with her grandchildren until she had to give it up in her eighties, Granny Dan died at age 90 in Vermont. As the narrator remembers Granny Dan baking cookies and telling the story of how she once danced before the czar and czarina as Danina Petrovska, a prima ballerina with the Russian ballet, she realizes how little she really knew about this woman who was not always old. Granny Dan's faded pink satin toe shoes, a gold locket with an unknown man's picture, and a stack of ribbon-wrapped letters lead the narrator to the truth about Granny Dan's past. She was a young woman whose life was consumed by her passion for the ballet until a chance meeting with a young doctor of the czar's court just before the Revolution changed her career, her focus, and her country. The best parts of the novel are the prologue and the epilogue. Although the story of Granny Dan is more interesting than the plot of Steel's previous novel (the disappointing Bittersweet, 1999), the book itself is slight and forgettable.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Melanie Duncan

Kirkus Reviews

Steel's 46th romance (after Bittersweet, p. 405, etc.), this time about a young woman who finds her grandmother's letters . . . as well as her old toe shoes. After Granny Dan's death, the nursing home where she died sends her granddaughter a package of last effectspictures, a locket, the ballet slippers, and a pile of letters tied together with faded blue ribbon and written in Russian, Dan's native tongue. Assuming the role of translator and plucker of heartstrings, Steel (perhaps we should call her Auntie Dan) creates the memoir of a woman who had always been old to her granddaughter. For those looking for a 3-D rendering of a 22-year-old ballerina who goes to New England during the Russian Revolution, look elsewhere. For those interested in the paper-doll version, including a ballgown presented by the czarina, Steels story will not disappoint. Danina Petroskova arrived at the Maryinsky school in St. Petersburg at age seven, where she studied with religious dedication to become a prima ballerina. Years later, when she is felled by influenza, her doctor, Nikolai Obrajensky, also the czar's physician, brings her to the royal family's summer palace to recuperate. While staying with Nick, Alex, and the kids, Danina and the unhappily married Nikolai fall in love. From here on, the gentle reader can pretty much write the book herself. Back in St. Petersburg, Danina endures a botched abortion that almost kills her. Then, once shes back in prima condition, and after a couple of interludes with Nikolai at Tsarsko Selo, she breaks her ankle and will never be able to dance again. Meanwhile, the Revolution is in full swing. Nikolai arranges for Danina to go to his cousin in Vermont, where as soon as he can leave the czar's family, now under arrest, hell join her. With her gift for turning tragedy into treacle, Steel writes the equivalent of one of those children's jewelry boxes where a plastic ballerina twirls to a very old tune.

About Author

Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors, with over 390 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Bittersweet, Mirror Image, The Klone and I, The Long Road Home, The Ghost, Special Delivery, The Ranch, Silent Honor, Five Days in Paris, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death.

Book Dimension:

length: (cm)17.5 　　　 　　　　　　　　　　 　 width:(cm)10.7