Sheldon's preference for women as his protagonists might be a subject for debate. As Lisa See points out in an interview published in Publishers Weekly (November 25, 1988): "What other popular novelist in the last two decades has so empowered his women characters? (Since I Dream of Jeannie, every Sheldon tale presents a woman in distress who rescues herself.)" However, these beautiful, successful women may not seem much more than the hapless victims of nineteenth-century melodramas to other readers. Is Sheldon actually furthering the feminist cause? In The Stars Shine Down, Lara Cameron is rescued from her predicament by the police and by the generosity of her former lover, Paul Martin.

How does she differ from Sheldon's other heroines?

In his column "The Professional Response" in the January 1995 edition of The Writer, Sheldon says: "My characters come to life in my novel as I dictate the story." The...