Danielle Steel - Past Perfect

Dear Readers,

I have never liked ghost stories, nor books about time travel, which seem too far-fetched to me, and not very productive. Someone cast back in time to fall in love with someone who lived hundreds of years agoand is then faced with the dilemma of staying in another century (abandoning everyone they know in their real life), or leaving their love to go back to their present-day world alonejust doesnt do it for me, and frustrates me. So this is a very unusual book for me, and stays within the confines of what seems reasonable.

I have a particular fondness for old houses, and have lived in several of them. One of them, a lovely Victorian house more than a hundred years old, was said to have ghosts, which I denied, pooh-poohed, and tried to ignore for the years I lived there. But undeniably there were some odd sounds, sights, and experiences that no one could explain, and others felt the same vibes, and were convinced there were ghosts in the housewhich I staunchly continued to ignore until the end. But old houses have a history of their own, of the people who lived there, happy or sad, the events that happened to them, and the lives they lived while they were there. Living in historic old houses, I have often wondered about the real stories of the people who lived there before. Ive restored two old houses, and always felt they had a soul. I often say that there is a sense of romance with old houses, you fall in love with them or you dont.

In Past Perfect, a young, lively, energetic familya young couple and their three kidsmoves to San Francisco from New York, moves into an old historical mansion, and brings with them their very modern point of view, their computers, their electronic games, their current trendy lifestyle. A mild earthquake the night they move in shakes them up a bitand suddenly, for an instant, a group of elegant, charming-seeming people from another century appears for an instant, and disappears just as quickly. Their portraits and furnishings are still in the house. There are psychic phenomena that I dont understand, but some people swear to, and they arent always easy to explain or deny. In this instance, a few days after the first sighting, the new owners of the house walk into the dining room, in jeans and T-shirts and sneakers and bare feet, and find themselves in the midst of the original family that owned the house, elegantly eating dinner in white tie. The two families are only visible to each other and no one else, and what begins that night is a powerful bond of respect, affection, and friendship, between two families who exist a century apart, and yet can see each other every day, in the house. The twentieth century was a particularly fascinating time of two world wars, the Crash of 1929, major social and industrial changes, a man landing on the moon, and all the enormous, incredible changes that transpired during those years.

The modern-day family lives a fascinating period of history with their new friends, while continuing their modern lives. They help each other, they teach each other, they share life experiences, they console each other, they love each other, and together they bring each other a richness of life derived from a bond of friendship that denies time and enhances their lives. It is a touching, poignant story of two families, who coincidentally live a hundred years apart under one roof, with a special gift that none of them ever expected to have. It adds immeasurably to their lives, and I hope you will love these two families as much as I did when I wrote the book. Its a very special book, about a special time, and people who have been blessed with a special gift that enriches their lives, and hopefully yours too, while reading about them. I hope you thoroughly enjoy it.

Love,

Danielle

Past Perfect is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2017 by Danielle Steel

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

D ELACORTE P RESS and the H OUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Steel, Danielle, author.

Title: Past perfect : a novel / Danielle Steel.

Description: New York : Delacorte Press, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046692| ISBN 9781101883976 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781101883983 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3569.T33828 P35 2017 | DDC 813/.54dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046692

Ebook ISBN9781101883983

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Virginia Norey, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Misa Erder

Cover photograph: Christopher Rees/Arcangel

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If you knew the future, and the past,

would you change your path, or assume that

your destiny was immutable and inevitable?

Can we alter the course of the future, or the past, or only adapt to it?

Or should both be respected and untouched?

d.s.