The key to Steel's success is in creating appealing characters. They are uniformly attractive and usually wealthy and successful, but on closer examination she reveals flaws which mark them as little different from the ordinary reader. All the wealth and beauty is little help in dealing with the most important aspects of life: the relationships between men, women, and their children.

Faye, in Family Album (1984) is a good example. She is a strong woman who makes choices and then lives with the results of her choices, admirable in her determination and endurance, and frightening in the force of her personality. She fights to keep the family together, observes the mistakes she makes. She demands a great deal from others as well as from herself, and loves as best she can. In this character Steel has created a complex, flawed and yet heroic woman. One understands why her children...