Genre Fiction
![Danielle Steel - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APK2GC.jpg)
Worthy Opponents: A Novel
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel comes a powerful novel about a woman running her family's luxury department store and the wealthy investor who threatens to take it over.
Spencer Brooke always knew she was destined to be CEO of her grandfather's business-the most respected and luxurious department store in New York City. Brooke's has been at the center of every happy memory she has, but it hasn't been an easy journey. Seven years after her father's death, her life is very different from the days when she walked through the store with her grandfather as a young girl. She may be the owner of Brooke's, but she's also now a divorced single mother of twin boys. And with the ever-evolving landscape of the fashion industry comes new challenges for Spencer and the legacy she's inherited.
Mike Weston is known for making enormous profits by transforming small businesses into bigger, more successful ones. With his marriage at a breaking point and his children grown up, investing is where he thrives-where he can build something greater. And Brooke's feels like the perfect opportunity. Yet the firm's beautiful and savvy CEO turns down the offer before they even meet.
Spencer has no interest in outside investors meddling in her family business; her grandfather never saw the need for them, and neither does she. She refuses to be tempted by Mike's offer, despite her big dreams of expanding the store. But when bad luck strikes, suddenly she is backed into a corner.
In Worthy Opponents, Danielle Steel crafts a thrilling story about a powerful woman-and her equally formidable opponent.
Spencer Brooke always knew she was destined to be CEO of her grandfather's business-the most respected and luxurious department store in New York City. Brooke's has been at the center of every happy memory she has, but it hasn't been an easy journey. Seven years after her father's death, her life is very different from the days when she walked through the store with her grandfather as a young girl. She may be the owner of Brooke's, but she's also now a divorced single mother of twin boys. And with the ever-evolving landscape of the fashion industry comes new challenges for Spencer and the legacy she's inherited.
Mike Weston is known for making enormous profits by transforming small businesses into bigger, more successful ones. With his marriage at a breaking point and his children grown up, investing is where he thrives-where he can build something greater. And Brooke's feels like the perfect opportunity. Yet the firm's beautiful and savvy CEO turns down the offer before they even meet.
Spencer has no interest in outside investors meddling in her family business; her grandfather never saw the need for them, and neither does she. She refuses to be tempted by Mike's offer, despite her big dreams of expanding the store. But when bad luck strikes, suddenly she is backed into a corner.
In Worthy Opponents, Danielle Steel crafts a thrilling story about a powerful woman-and her equally formidable opponent.
Readers Top Reviews
Gail HerrmannEileen
I am always amazed at the abundance of different stories Danielle Steel writes. Her historical fiction books are my favorite. That being said, this book was like coming home and reading a really comfortable book. I didn't love it, but loved the characters and cared what happened to them. Not as much romance in this story, but one of family, tradition, dedication and lots of hard work. As always, I am so happy to be able to read a book by Danielle Steel!
LJG
Worthy Opponents is Danielle Steel's writing at its best! I rediscovered Ms. Steel's novels several years ago after a long hiatus. This novel has a multifaceted heroine, Spencer Brooke, heir to a high end clothing store that has been in her family for years. Mike Weston is the charismatic "hero" who is flawed, but a hero none the less! The synopsis of the novel is easily found on the internet, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend reading it! Thanks to NetGalley, Danielle Steel, and the publisher for the ARC!
Beth H
Spencer Brooke is a successful young woman, who grew into a family business and eventually became the CEO of their luxurious New York City department store. Spencer proved to be very business savvy and committed to the rich history of the family business. However, life begins to pile on, and she is dealing with life after divorce, twin sons, and mounting pressures to expand the business and bring in investors. Mike Weston is a New York City investor who is also dealing with a divorce, and two older children. He discovers Spencer's store and is immediately intrigued by what he has seen. Mike puts an investment offer together but Spencer realizes what a significant change that will be to both her and the business. However, the challenges begin to mount, and Spencer may have no other options.
Barb
Worthy Opponents by Danielle Steel is another one of her wonderful novels. Spencer Brooke, our heroine, as a child, she was always enamored with her grandfather’s business, Brooke and Son; a popular respected and well known department story in New York City. Growing up, Spencer loved fashion design, majoring in fashion administration; especially as she knew she was destined to become the CEO of Brooke’s. After her father’s death, she inherited the business in her thirties; and was determined to salvage the damage done by her father’s poor management skills, preserving her grandfather’s legacy. A short time after Spencer inherited the store, she got married, and had twin boys. Her husband wanted her to give up the store, and stay home with the boys; she did not agree, determined to prove that she could manage her career that she loved, as well be there for her children. After a number of years, she gets divorced, with the husband not really caring for the children. Spencer has a few wonderful loyal management staff, and realizes that things have gotten harder financially, as she may need an investor to help, as well as possibly expand. Spencer is stubborn, and doesn’t want investors to take the majority of her business. We meet Mike Weston, one of the most successful investors, who is contacted by Brooke’s CFO, requesting to meet. Mike finds his marriage slowly falling apart, as they rarely talk anymore, and with his two grown up children away, things are extremely at the breaking point. When the owner of Brooke’s refuses to meet with him to discuss possibilities, he anonymously sends her an invitation to a gala, so that he can learn more about her. After meeting her at the dinner, they find themselves liking each other, and a friendship evolves, even though Spencer is not interested in his investment proposals. Brooke’s ends up with a few setbacks, a flood, and later a dangerous disaster close to the store. Spencer knows she will have to give up a majority of her company, as the damage was costly; despite her despair, she will make a deal with Mike. Will there be another way for Brooke’s to survive, without Spencer losing everything? What follows is a wonderful story that is emotional and heartwarming, with a wonderful heroine, and fantastic characters. Slowly Spencer and Mike begin to have feelings for each other, and develop a personal relationship. I loved them together; they made such a great couple. I enjoyed watching Spencer’s twins and Mike grown up children become close. I loved Worthy Opponents, which was so very well written by Danielle Steel. I wholly suggest you read this wonderful story.
Robin D
Spencer Brooke is the third generation to own and operate her grandfather's store. She comes from a long line of store operators. Mike Wilson is an investor, who hears about Spencer's store through his employees as well as his daughter. Spencer is trying to operate the store as her grandfather did and in the same location, but a series of bad luck including a fire and a gang fight that spills into her store proves that this location may not be the best for this generation. Mike has previously tried to invest in her store, but she is unwilling to give up the equity and ownership that Mike wants. Spencer and Mike start to develop feelings for each other, and in the end, they deem each other Worthy Opponents, both in business and life. A great, contemporary love story that takes place in New York. Great characters as well as great character development of the main characters.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
Spencer Brooke was a small, trim woman, with a subtle but very definite sense of style. She stood out in a crowd, and was noticeably chic. She wore her blond hair in a bun at work and loose when she was at home. At thirty-seven, she ran a major enterprise. She was the owner and CEO of one of the most respected department stores in New York, Brooke and Son, more commonly known as Brooke's. Although her more distant ancestors and her mother's family had all been bankers for generations, her father's family had been in the retail business. She was the fourth generation. It was in her blood. She loved the store and everything about it, and had ever since she was a child. She loved the smell of it, of muted perfume, the moment she walked through the door, and the elegance of the merchandise they carried, which made her proud whenever she saw it.
She was fourteen years old when her grandfather, Thornton Brooke, told her that one day she would run the store. It had never occurred to her before, but from then on, she had taken special pride in it. Her grandfather was eighty years old then. He taught her the things she would need to know one day, and would later quiz her on the information he'd shared with her. Brooke's in its present form had been Thornton's dream as a young man.
Thornton's father, Jeremiah, had owned the largest, most successful department store in New York. He had established it with his own inherited fortune in 1920, with a partner. They called it Johnson and Brooke, and when Jeremiah bought out his partner a year later, he kept the name. They had the finest elite customers in the city. All of Jeremiah's male relatives before him had been bankers, and his own father was skeptical when Jeremiah founded the store with the family money he had inherited. Jeremiah had an unfailing instinct for and attraction to retail. He knew just what both men and women wanted to buy, and he supplied it, bringing in the highest quality merchandise from Europe, and beautifully designed pieces from all the luxury brands in the States.
Thornton was nine years old when suddenly everything changed. He didn't understand what had happened at first. The family moved from their mansion on Fifth Avenue to a small apartment in Gramercy Park. His grandfather's bank closed its doors, and he heard his parents speak of the closing of the store in whispers. Jeremiah gave up his beloved store nine years after he'd opened it in the same year that his son Thornton was born. Thornton was twelve when he fully understood that they had lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929, which was why Jeremiah had to lose the store and go to work at a men's haberdashery. Thornton's mother cried all the time, and his father wore a perennially grim expression from then on. The servants Thornton had grown up with had disappeared. The family had kept one maid. Meals with his parents were a silent hour of torture. Thornton couldn't wait to escape to his room. Unlike others they knew who had lost even more than they had, the family had enough to live on, in a frugal existence. They just managed to get by, but they had a roof over their heads and weren't starving. His father had looked older instantly, and suffered from ill health from then on, but went to work anyway. Even as an adult, Thornton could remember vividly how gray his father had become. Everything about him was gray, his hair, his face, the atmosphere in the house.
They had saved enough to send Thornton to college. He went to Princeton as all the men in his family had before him. He was twenty-one years old and a senior when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Two months later, he enlisted in the army. He spent the war in Europe, and survived the invasion of Normandy. His father, Jeremiah, died of tuberculosis at fifty-seven while Thornton was away at war. He returned to find his mother looking ancient and frail, although she was only fifty. The days of glory had never come again. In his spare time during the war, Thornton dreamed of opening a store, not on the grand scale of the one they'd had, but something smaller and just as exclusive. He had no idea how he would do it, but he knew he would. He had a more outgoing, cheerful, positive personality than his parents. He came home from the war older and wiser, with a fire in his belly, and a dream.
Thornton met Hannabel Phillips six months after he got back from Europe and was released by the army. Hannabel was a beautiful, lively girl from Virginia. Thornton was mad for her. His father had left him a small amount of money. It wasn't a great deal, but it was a start. They married in 1945. She was working in an exclusive dress shop uptown in New York and had a style of her own...
Spencer Brooke was a small, trim woman, with a subtle but very definite sense of style. She stood out in a crowd, and was noticeably chic. She wore her blond hair in a bun at work and loose when she was at home. At thirty-seven, she ran a major enterprise. She was the owner and CEO of one of the most respected department stores in New York, Brooke and Son, more commonly known as Brooke's. Although her more distant ancestors and her mother's family had all been bankers for generations, her father's family had been in the retail business. She was the fourth generation. It was in her blood. She loved the store and everything about it, and had ever since she was a child. She loved the smell of it, of muted perfume, the moment she walked through the door, and the elegance of the merchandise they carried, which made her proud whenever she saw it.
She was fourteen years old when her grandfather, Thornton Brooke, told her that one day she would run the store. It had never occurred to her before, but from then on, she had taken special pride in it. Her grandfather was eighty years old then. He taught her the things she would need to know one day, and would later quiz her on the information he'd shared with her. Brooke's in its present form had been Thornton's dream as a young man.
Thornton's father, Jeremiah, had owned the largest, most successful department store in New York. He had established it with his own inherited fortune in 1920, with a partner. They called it Johnson and Brooke, and when Jeremiah bought out his partner a year later, he kept the name. They had the finest elite customers in the city. All of Jeremiah's male relatives before him had been bankers, and his own father was skeptical when Jeremiah founded the store with the family money he had inherited. Jeremiah had an unfailing instinct for and attraction to retail. He knew just what both men and women wanted to buy, and he supplied it, bringing in the highest quality merchandise from Europe, and beautifully designed pieces from all the luxury brands in the States.
Thornton was nine years old when suddenly everything changed. He didn't understand what had happened at first. The family moved from their mansion on Fifth Avenue to a small apartment in Gramercy Park. His grandfather's bank closed its doors, and he heard his parents speak of the closing of the store in whispers. Jeremiah gave up his beloved store nine years after he'd opened it in the same year that his son Thornton was born. Thornton was twelve when he fully understood that they had lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929, which was why Jeremiah had to lose the store and go to work at a men's haberdashery. Thornton's mother cried all the time, and his father wore a perennially grim expression from then on. The servants Thornton had grown up with had disappeared. The family had kept one maid. Meals with his parents were a silent hour of torture. Thornton couldn't wait to escape to his room. Unlike others they knew who had lost even more than they had, the family had enough to live on, in a frugal existence. They just managed to get by, but they had a roof over their heads and weren't starving. His father had looked older instantly, and suffered from ill health from then on, but went to work anyway. Even as an adult, Thornton could remember vividly how gray his father had become. Everything about him was gray, his hair, his face, the atmosphere in the house.
They had saved enough to send Thornton to college. He went to Princeton as all the men in his family had before him. He was twenty-one years old and a senior when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Two months later, he enlisted in the army. He spent the war in Europe, and survived the invasion of Normandy. His father, Jeremiah, died of tuberculosis at fifty-seven while Thornton was away at war. He returned to find his mother looking ancient and frail, although she was only fifty. The days of glory had never come again. In his spare time during the war, Thornton dreamed of opening a store, not on the grand scale of the one they'd had, but something smaller and just as exclusive. He had no idea how he would do it, but he knew he would. He had a more outgoing, cheerful, positive personality than his parents. He came home from the war older and wiser, with a fire in his belly, and a dream.
Thornton met Hannabel Phillips six months after he got back from Europe and was released by the army. Hannabel was a beautiful, lively girl from Virginia. Thornton was mad for her. His father had left him a small amount of money. It wasn't a great deal, but it was a start. They married in 1945. She was working in an exclusive dress shop uptown in New York and had a style of her own...
