44 CHARLES STREET

A magical transformation takes place in Danielle Steel?s luminous new novel: Strangers become roommates, roommates become friends, and friends become a family in a turn-of-the-century house in Manhattan?s West Village. The plumbing leaked; the furniture was rescued from garage sales. And every inch was being restored to its original splendor?even as a relationship fell apart. Owner of a struggling art gallery and newly separated from her boyfriend, Francesca Thayer does the math and then the unimaginable. She puts out an advertisement for boarders, and soon her Greenwich Village house becomes a whole new world. First comes Eileen, a pretty L.A. transplant, now a New York City schoolteacher.