Wanderlust is the story of Audrey Driscoll. Orphaned young,
Audrey has grown up caring for her eccentric millionaire grandfather and
her demanding younger sister, Annabelle, who assume she will always be
there for them. Sheltered yet restless, responsible beyond her years
yet hungering for experience, Audrey is hopelessly bound until she
herself makes the daring decision to leave. As the 1930s unfold, alone,
camera in hand, she will shock friends and outrage family as she
plunges headlong into the wider world.
Crossing the Atlantic aboard the luxurious Queen Mary,
Audrey meets James and Violet Hawthorne, who will draw her into a
sophisticated circle of artists and expatriates. And it is they who
will introduce her to Charles Parker-Scott, in who Audrey will come to
recognize a twin soul, a man propelled by relentless curiosity and
driven by conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. Together
they will spend an exquisite summer at Cap d'Antibes, then board the
Orient Express on an adventure that will carry them to a remote outpost
in China. But at the farthest reaches of this journey Aubrey must
choose again. Japan has attacked China. Charles knows he must return
to Europe at once. But Audrey becomes involved with a besieged
orphanage and decides to remain in China without Charles, caring for the
abandoned children until help arrives.
In time Audrey will
return to America with a daughter of her own. While she must come home
to San Francisco to confront a world irrevocably changed by time, she
finds she cannot stay. From prewar Germany to London during the Blitz,
from a wrenching reunion with Charles to a war zone in North Africa,
again and again she must choose between the dictates of her conscience
and the yearnings of her heart. For Audrey Driscoll and the men and
women whose lives touch hers, wanderlust is the inescapable element.
Born at a time when women were expected to stay close to home and
fulfill traditional roles, Audrey is compelled to follow the thread of
events that will destroy the complacency of the past and shape the
future. From Europe to China, from San Francisco to North Africa, she
is irresistibly drawn into a man's world of conflict, discovery, and
danger.
In a vivid novel of breathtaking scope, Danielle Steel
has once again surpassed herself in creating an unforgettable tale of
men and women caught in the tides of personal drama and historic event.
Wanderlust is Danielle Steel's finest journey.
RN #00132