Against a vivid backdrop of history, Danielle Steel tells a compelling story of love and war, acts of faith and acts of betrayal…and of three generations of women as they journey though years of loss and survival, linked by an indomitable devotion that echoes across time.

For the Wittgenstein family, the summer of 1915 was a time of both prosperity and unease, as the guns of war sound in the distance. But for eldest daughter Beata, it was also a summer of awakening. By the glimmering waters of Lake Geneva, the quiet Jewish beauty met a young French officer and fell in love. Knowing that her parents would never accept her marriage to a Catholic, Beata followed her heart anyway. And as the two built a new life together, Beata’s past would stay with her in ways she could never have predicted. For as the years pass, and Europe is once again engulfed in war, Beata must watch in horror as Hitler’s terror threatens her life and family—even her eighteen-year-old daughter Amadea, who has taken on the vows of a Carmelite nun.

For Amadea, the convent is no refuge. As family and friends are swept away without a trace, Amadea is forced into hiding. Thus begins a harrowing journey of survival, as she escapes into the heart of the French Resistance. Here Amadea will find a renewed sense of purpose, taking on the most daring missions behind enemy lines. And it is here, in the darkest moments of fear, that Amadea will feel her mother’s loving strength—and that of her mother’s mother before her–as the voices of lost loved ones echo powerfully in her heart. And here, amid the fires of war, Amadea will meet an extraordinary man, British secret agent Rupert Montgomery. In Colonel Montgomery, Amadea finds a man who will help her discover her place in an unbreakable chain between generations…and between her lost family and her dreams for the future—a future she is only just beginning to imagine: a future of hope rooted in the rich soil of the past.

With the grace of a master storyteller, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, creating a bold, sweeping tale filled with unforgettable characters and breathtaking images—from the elegant rituals of Europe’s prewar aristocracy to the brutal desperation of Germany’s death camps. Drawing us into a vanished world, Echoes weaves an intricate tapestry of a mother’s love, a daughter’s courage…and the unwavering faith that sustained them—even in history’s darkest hour.

I really liked this story about a Jewish girl named Beata during WW I who meets a French Catholic man and her parents shun her because of her marrying out of her faith. It tells a moving story of their marriage, birth of 2 girls, and with her coping with her husband and mothers death. I liked this book. I think that this is one of her better ones. I also loved Silent Honor, Wanderlust and other Steele books (too many to mention though).

Like all of Danielle Steel's stories, this is a story of tortured innocents masqueraded as a "romance." While there is a happy ending, too many things are left up in the air. The ending was very poorly done and too abrupt. There are some things, like whether or not Beata and Daphne survive the war, which of the children living with Rupert find their parents, and the fate of other characters introduced during the course of the book, thatare left unsaid. It was as if, she got to a certain word lengthn, and simply quit writing the story because she'd written too much already. Like many of Danielle Steel's plots, some of the details were a bit unbelievable, particularly Beata being reported to the Gestapo. Too many things just didn't gel.

This book looked like it had it all for me: historical setting + romance I have to give it 2 stars because it had these 2 elements, unfortunately it seemed like I was reading a well written outline. It really could have been turned into so much more. The story felt like - he was handsome + she was pretty = they fell in love. No details, no drama, just some facts you were supposed to believe. I could have written a better book had I been given this material. Glad I didn't buy it. Is Danielle still writing at her best or just making money writing crap that will sell-? (I may not be the best judge because this is her first book I have read)

Dull compared to some of her other books. Seems unfinished.

I'd never read a Steel book, so I figured I'd give it a shot. But before I finished the first chapter I was brought to mind an image of a dozen men sitting at their typewriters with cigars hanging out of their mouths, churning out the same hundreds of books and laughing at us gullible readers. Their boss comes in, hands them copies of Steel's first novels as outlines. "And if you can't make your word count," he says, "Just repeat yourself or ad commas."

But before I go into my confusion over Steel's bestseller status, I'll break the plot to you: 20-year-old Beata Wittgenstein meets the love of her life while vacationing with her family in Switzerland. The tall, hot hunk happens to be a Catholic Frenchman, and Beata is Jewish. You know how it works. Beata goes against her family's wishes and marries him. Beata is considered dead to her family, especially her father, when she leaves them and her faith. (How many times must Steel remind us of this fact? Apparently never enough.) Beata has 2 girls, Amadea and Daphne, the former of which becomes swept up in the Holocaust. I was expecting (and hoping) that this book would maybe attempt to do the Holocaust a bit of justice and actaully revolve around it, but no, it only gets into the romance of the family. Steel could have just as easily told this story in the present-day, and because she could have she shouldn't have set it during something as potentially sensitive as the Holocaust.

It might be that these books are meant to be quick reads and I'm used to novels, but her writing style alone made me unable to get into the story. She covers an entire chapter going over how stunning Beata looked in her dress. We readers are not stupid, if you say the dress is amazing you don't have to keep pounding it into our heads. Steel tells us one thing then repeats it two pages later... Maybe, if we're lucky, worded a little differently. Oh, but wait - she mentions it again two paragraphs later. And you can't close the chapter without making sure we've got it down. Ugh. It felt as if she couldn't make her word count and I was reading through the chapters of stuffing that got her there.

I'd really like to know who did the editing. Someone else suggested that Steel isn't even writing her own books anymore, and that seems like it must be the case. If the misplacement of commas that we see all too often these days drives you crazy (as it does me), then stay away from this one. Almost every sentence has an innapropriate comma. I'm not exaggerating there. The short, choppy sentence structure throughout the whole book made it seem amatuer and gave me the impression that she writes strictly for quantity. And yes, her research lacked severely. By the middle of this book I wanted to start counting how many times she would repeat "sit shiva."

One star for the plot, which showed potential but failed to make it.