Thanks to Netgalley, I have read many Danielle Steel books this year and have enjoyed them all. This book has definitely been my favorite one to read. The characters were so true to life and I liked the way the story progressed moving all the different storylines along together. An enjoyable and heartwarming read.

I have loved Danielle Steel for as long as I can remember. Her books are always beautifully written and this one is no exception! I love when you learn to accept what you may have once not approved of. This story is heartwarming and lovely.

Kate Morgan loves a perfect, organized life. She has been widowed for 5 years and has been a single model mother to her three adult children. Tamara, Anthony and Claire. Luckily she has the type of mother she can lean on.

Within a year, Kate's world is in turmoil. Her children have been keeping secrets from her, and add a baby from an inappropriate romance, and another child has a confession to make to air everything out. Even Kate has kept some secrets locked up.

This book is an excellent read, as do we really know what is best for our children? Or are they capable of choosing their own lifestyle?

((Insert Drumroll)) This is another winner, in the long list of Danielle Steel's memorable books.

You can feel the thick emotions like a heartbeat.

Be sure to order this book today for yourself maybe a special family member.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for giving me the opportunity, to read this book in advance. -- Will also be posted on GoodReads this evening.

Child’s Play by Danielle Steel is another one of her wonderful heartwarming standalone novel revolving around a family. Child’s Play has some romance, but it is mostly about a family, children, life changing situations that had a bit of everything.

Kate Morgan is a successful senior partner in a law firm, who is in her mid-50’s, widowed and has three grown up children. She is content and very happy; adores and is very proud of her wonderful successful children (Tammy, Anthony and Claire). Kate is in the midst of a difficult and stressful case, but always keeps abreast of her children’s lives; but soon her perfect children will pull the rug from under her, making her look differently at her own life, as well as theirs.

First, her youngest daughter Claire, tells her mother that she is pregnant, loves her rich successful boyfriend, but refuses to marry him, as she does not believe in marriage. This disturbs Kate, as she tries to convince Claire that it is not in her best interest to have a child out of wedlock, especially since the father wants to marry her.
Her son Anthony, creates successful games, and is currently engaged, with a wedding upcoming in a few months, and Kate thinks he has the perfect fiancée. Soon Anthony will meet at the gym a model, who he begins to have an affair with, and knows that his feelings for the model is much more then with his spoiled fiancée. Hence, he breaks his engagement and Kate now has to learn to deal with this. The final daughter, Tammy, has kept a secret from her mother for 7 years; she is gay and in a relationship with someone during those years. She finally tells her mother.

At first Kate is in a state of shock, but she quickly learns to accept her children’s life changing surprises, even with Claire, who becomes difficult to deal with. Kate will also have her own life changing experience, as she unexpectedly meets someone whom she never expected to find love with.

Child’s Play was a wonderful, heartwarming story that brings the family together, and we get to see each of them have their own happy endings. Very well written by Danielle Steel. I thoroughly enjoyed Child’s Play.

Danielle Steel is one of my all-time favorite authors and that is because I can count on her to deliver a story that is captivating every single time.

Sometimes children don't go in the direction you might have hoped and as a mother, Steel shares the heartache that sometimes causes. This novel is fantastic and highly recommended.

This was a sweet easy read. It reminded me of a hallmark movie with the perfect happy ending.

Kate raised the perfect children. They all went to college, make good money and never cause problems. One day her youngest announces she's pregnant and doesn't plan on getting married (gasp). This opens the gate for her other children to realize it's okay to not be perfect. Kate has a hard time accepting it at first but then realizes that they're adults, she's done raising g them and maybe she can enjoy life again.

Thank you enthralled for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Child's Play
By Danielle Steel

A mother who single handedly brought up seemingly three perfect children finds out that they are not at all who she thought they were. I loved this novel because it conveys that we are all individuals whom are not always going to be what our parents wanted us to be and that is perfectly okay.

This novel explores diversity, independence, not being the adult that our parent chose for us, being able to be our true selves and still be accepted by those we love. In this case it is three very different children. Their mother had her own idea that her children grew up to be what she deemed successful. They each surprise her with their 180 degree switch into their own choices.

For me, the novel began to wane and not be as realistic is their mothers new "perfect" relationship. This is how this author usually writes her romance and why even though I appreciate her ability to deal with relevant issues, she can't seem to break the mold of having romance unfold in perfect bliss. Life is just not like this as it eventually gets messy with problems. Life always inevitably happens with problems. If this author could write more realist fiction more people would read her books who like literature based in reality.

Thank you to Net Galley, Danielle Steel and the Publisher for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Child's Play is another in a long line of great novels by Danielle Steel. In this book, Kate Morgan, a widowed mother of three children, has completed law school, is a senior partner in her firm and raised her children to have seemingly perfect lives. But in one summer that all falls apart. Kate is very involved with her adult children and feels that she has steered them in the right direction but she finds out that she really did not know her children at all.

Her oldest child has been keeping an astonishing secret. Another child trades a seemingly wonderful match and picture-book wedding for a relationship that shakes Kate to her core. The final child has a totally inappropriate love affair and an out-of-wedlock baby. Challenged as a mother and as a successful independent woman herself, Kate struggles to keep up with a dizzying and escalating chain of events, and begins to realize that she has a part to play in the chaos. Because Kate too has kept secrets from her children.




A senior partner at a prestigious New York law firm, Kate Morgan couldn’t be prouder of her three grown children. Tamara, Anthony, and Claire all went to great schools, chose wonderful career paths, and would have made their father proud. A single mother for years after the death of her husband, Kate keeps a tight rein on her family, her career, and even her own emotions, never once asking herself if she truly knows her children . . . or if her hopes for them are the right ones, and what they want. She is about to find out.

During one hectic summer in Manhattan, Kate’s world turns upside down. One child has been keeping an astonishing secret while another confesses to an equally shocking truth. A wonderful match and picture-book wedding are traded for a relationship that shakes Kate to her core. A totally inappropriate love affair and an out-of-wedlock baby complete the chaos. Kate struggles to keep up with the chain of events, but she really cannot say much because she also has kept secrets from her children.

Child's Play is a wonderful story of how we perceive things to be at times rather than how they really are.

Another bestseller for Danielle Steele!!!!!!! Loved this story and the characters. D.S.'s stories always stay with me for awhile and this one is no exception. Her characters are always so real and what happens to them is too. I think that's what makes her books so enjoyable is the stories are so relatable. We have Kate, an older woman who is a lawyer with three adult children. She was widowed at a young age and has always made her children her world. Having to be both mom and dad while working at the same time. She's always held her children to perfection even without even realizing it. Well as adults when all three start to rebel against what Kate thinks is best for them it throws her for a huge loop. You have to read it to see how she deals w/everything her grown kids throw at her. Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing group for honest review

I have always and always will love books by Danielle Steel. She certainly has a standard writing style she uses and I always enjoy her books!

The book description gives you a good idea of what this book is about and I will not pretend I can do a better synopsis. I enjoyed this book and fell into the author's trap of needing to find out how everything would turn out. I really liked the several surprises and I really admired the protagonist, Kate. Tamara, Anthony and Claire are all successful adults to make any mother proud. That they each have a crisis in their lives only makes them more relatable and Kate more relatable. There is also romance around every corner as well as the problems that arise with romantic involvements.

I have not read this author in a number of years but I'm delighted that I picked up this book. A good read!

Kate Morgan's life is just as she wants it. Good job, great kids, a relationship that works, she's got it all. But when she realizes that the picture perfect life as she sees it really isn't reality, she has to change her beliefs and come to terms that "perfect" is perceived differently.

I really enjoyed the way Danielle Steele wove the children's stories within the mother's. It was a very easy read and not a complicated story to follow. I can't wait to read more of her novels.

Danielle Steele the dame of the romance novel has dabbled in a little bit of mystery and a little bit of fluff. Child’s Play is typical Steele fare in that our lead character on the surface has faced and overcome trials and tribulations in that when we meet her her husband a beloved politician has perished in a aircraft accident many years before and in true Steele fashion picked herself up and found a second act as a successful lawyer ; a lawyer who loves the life she has carved out for herself, all the while offering time and energy for her three children as their needs dictated. Each child on the surface is polished ,professional and settled that is until each one revels major changes which challenge a mothers long held image of each one. It is the changes each forces her to face that gives this story its complications and resolves in the end. I will always be grateful to Ms Steele if not for her I would not know that caviar has its own spoon!

Kate is a single mother of three grown children that she raised on her own after her husband was killed in an airplane crash. Kate is a high successful attorney with a busy career, but is never too busy for her family.
All in one year,she is faced with one of her daughters announcing that she is pregnant, and without plans to be married. Her other daughter announces that she has been living with a partner for the past seven years, and would like her mother to meet the woman that she has been living with and wants to marry. And then there is her son who is engaged to be married, who comes to the realization that he is in love with another woman.
DS keeps the storyline moving swiftly throughout the book. The characters are all very real people that the readers will be able to relate to and enjoy reading about. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am very grateful to both Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for having provided me an advanced readers copy of this book.

An excellent book! Had fun reading it, and kept me on my toes the whole time. Great character development and fascinating storyline.

A truly unremarkable, bland story. The central character Kate Morgan, finds her perfect world rocked by her children’s life styles and decisions. Honestly, the worst is her daughter’s immaturity and bad behavior, which escalates as the story builds. The book is not a bad read, just slow, without much pizzazz.

A senior partner at a prestigious New York law firm, Kate Morgan couldn’t be prouder of her three grown children. Tamara, Anthony, and Claire all went to great schools, chose wonderful career paths, and would have made their father proud. A single mother for years after the death of her husband, Kate keeps a tight rein on her family, her career, and even her own emotions, never once asking herself if she truly knows her children . . . or if her hopes for them are the right ones, and what they want. She is about to find out.


Thank you to net galley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book. Danielle Steele does it again this book was super good. Being a mother we all can relate to this book having to be a single mother

Kate Morgan is a single mother in Manhattan working as a senior partner at a prestigious law firm. Balancing her career and motherhood after the sudden death of her husband hasn't been easy. Her three adult children are her pride and joy for each is successful in his or her own right. Then one summer, her whole world changes when she learns that each of her kids has been living a lie. Despite Tamara, Anthony and Claire having attended impressive schools and chosen highly desirable professions, they do not share Kate's hopes and dreams in their personal lives. Kate wrestles with the new norm as she realizes she's no longer in control. As Kate tries her best to accept her children's lives on their terms, the truth is revealed about secrets she, too, has been keeping.

Steel expertly addresses the difficultly parents often face when the lifestyles of children may not be what we, as parents, have envisioned. Families evolve as children grow up and parents age and it takes time and patience to accept everyone's individuality. As an avid reader of Steel's books, this new release is a departure from her typical novels. While there are romantic subplots, the main theme centers on family and how change is difficult to accept for parents and kids alike. I highly recommend this new release, especially for empty-nesters like myself. There's a lesson to be learned here ... love grows in unexpected ways.

Let me preface this by saying that I have read every book that Danielle Steel has ever written. Some I've loved, and some, well, I haven't loved. This one is in the second category.

The reason I didn't love this book is that the majority of characters were not people I would like. Kate, our main character, is so judgmental and self-centered. Every time her children come to her to share some sort of news, she makes it about herself and gives them some superficial reason for their news not be acceptable. Seriously?! This book could have taken place in the 1970's.

This is a short book and moves very quickly. While I didn't enjoy this one, I am sure that I will continue to read her books.

I am not usually a Danielle Steel fan, but this was an interesting book. Characters were good, but I could not find any redeeming value in Claire..I just didn't like her. Otherwise enjoyed this novel a lot