Danielle Steel

Danielle Steel's romance novels have sold millions of copies in dozens of languages and have kept her on the bestseller lists since the 1980s. Steel started her professional career in public relations and advertising, then turned to writing novels in the early 1970s. Like Barbara Cartland and Stephen King, Steel has offset the snubs of the literati with enormous popular success, and many of her novels, including Crossings (1982), Changes (1983) and Jewels (1992) have been made into TV movies (especially during the early 1990s). She has also written a series of children's books (called the Max and Martha series) and a few non-fiction books, including 1998's His Bright Light, a tribute to her son, Nick Traina, who committed suicide at the age of 19 after battling substance abuse and mental illness.