Malice [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Danielle Steel (Author), Jason Culp (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996

In her thirty-seventh bestselling novel, Danielle Steel tells the compelling story of a woman who must struggle to overcome a shattering betrayal, and the cruelest kind of malice.



At seventeen, the night of her mother's funeral, Grace Adams is attacked.  It is not the first time,  and a brutal crime ensues.



And to everyone's horror, Grace will not tell the truth.  She is a young woman with secrets too horrible to tell, with hurts so deep they may never heal.  She is also beautiful enough for men to want her no matter how much she does not want them.  Whatever the outcome,  Grace Adams will have to live with whatever happened during those terrible years.  And after a lifetime of being a victim,  now she must pay the price for other people's sins.



From the depths of an Illinois women's prison to a Chicago modeling agency to a challenging career in New York, Grace must carry the past with her wherever she goes.  And in healing her own pain, she reaches out to battered women and children who live a nightmare she knows all too well.



When Grace meets Charles Mackenzie,  a  New York lawyer, she has found a man who wants nothing from her -- except to heal her, to hear her secrets,  and to give her the family she so desperately wants.  But, with happiness finally within her grasp, and precious loved ones to protect, Grace is at her most vulnerable--in danger of losing everything to a vicious tabloid press and an enemy from her past, an enemy bent on malice at all costs.



With rare insight and power, Danielle Steel writes this extraordinary woman's story, portraying her struggle to triumph over malice and betrayal, and to transform a lifetime of pain into a blessing for others.  Revealing both the stark reality of domestic abuse and the healing power of love, Malice is more than superb fiction.  It is a piece of life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Only veteran author Danielle Steel can make dysfunction this fashionable! In Malice, her 37th potboiler, the gloves come off. Life is no fairy tale for teenager Grace Adams. The preternaturally quiet and dowdy daughter of Watseka's favorite son, lawyer John Adams, and his lovely, cancer-stricken wife Ellen, Grace has an ugly little secret that she's kept for four years. When her father brutally rapes her following her mother's funeral, Grace kills him. Only 17 years old, she faces the death penalty in a town all too willing to perpetrate the fiction of John Adams, even when it means prison for Grace. Upon release two years later, Grace heads for Chicago where life starts looking up when she finds a job as a receptionist in a downtown modeling agency. Unfortunately, Grace encounters an unscrupulous photographer and a slimy parole officer. As soon as her parole is over, Grace escapes again, running to New York City to disappear among the hordes. Working as a secretary in a law firm, she's asked to work for a partner. After a rocky start, Charles Mackenzie and Grace establish a comfortable routine. But when Grace is brutally beaten by the husband of a woman in the crisis center where she volunteers, Charles is at her side constantly, arranging for the finest medical care and talking her out of her coma. Love blooms as Grace slowly recuperates. Finally whole again, inside and out, Grace and Charles marry and start a family. Life couldn't get much better as Charles enters politics and Grace tends to their growing family. But when tabloids release the story of Grace's sordid past and explicit photos of Grace taken while she was drugged, their family is left reeling, with Charles's campaign in shambles and Grace's life crumbling around her. Danielle Steel doesn't even pretend that Malice is a piece of romantic fiction, but loyal fans will happily make the transition as she charts a new course! --Alison Trinkle --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Sexual abuse in myriad forms imbues Steel's new novel with uncharacteristically dark tones. The narrative covers more than 20 painful years in the life of Grace Adams, an incest victim who, at age 17, shoots dead her abusive father. Sent to prison, Grace is rescued from a lesbian gang-rape by a pair of women who provide protection during her two-year sentence. Once released, she heads to Chicago, where she lands a job in a modeling agency, only to be sexually harassed by a series of men, including her parole officer, her boss and a wicked photographer. After her probation ends, Grace moves to New York; there, she works as secretary in a major law firm and volunteers in a shelter for abused women. Steel is careful not to let the nearly fatal beating that follows mar her heroine's good looks, or future. Grace emerges from a coma to find handsome Charles Mackenzie, her high-powered lawyer boss, at her bedside. A happy ending?which follows some satisfying vengeance on Grace's part?doesn't minimize the aura of victimization that surrounds this heroine. Only in a Danielle Steel novel would a 19-year-old ex-con show up at her first job interview in a "little Chanel knockoff" suit?but neither pseudo-high fashion nor the high-handed conclusion keep this yarn from being, ultimately, a big downer that earns its title in more ways than one.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055347667X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553476675
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,828,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( S ) > Steel, Danielle

More About the Author

Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors, with over 590 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include 44 Charles Street, Legacy, Family Ties, Big Girl, Southern Lights, Matters of the Heart, One Day at a Time, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Woman's Struggle to be Free..., June 7, 2002

By 

Tracy Talley "Book Addict" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Malice (Paperback)

I was impressed with the way Ms. Steel developed the character of Grace Adams. She was deep and real. I was a little bothered by what she went through and at times I winced and shook my head in pity.
A sad tale about a young girl named Grace Adams who is abused savagely from when she was 13 until her mother's death when she turned 17. Four long years of abuse and the night of the funeral she is once again attacked brutally and then knows for certain it will never end. Doing the unthinkable, she ends her torture and finds herself on trial.
Thinking things can't get worse, they do as she is convicted of murder and is sentenced to prison. Once a weak girl she becomes a strong woman in those years and wants to start her life over and she does.
Taking a job in Chicago for a modeling agency Grace is thrown into the seedy world of drugs and backstabbing. Beautiful enough to be a model herself, Grace finds that men want her but she wants nothing to do with men. She can't, she has a terrible secret.
After disaster in Chicago she moves to New York and takes a challenging job where she meets Charles Mackenzie, a New York lawyer. He wants nothing from her, just to be her friend, heal her wounds and listen to her. Can she trust him? He's an older man...reminds her of her horrible secret.
Throwing caution to the wind she grasps love and embraces it. Years go by and she is happy with a husband and three children when he goes into politics and a tabloid digs up her past for all to see...
Old enemies, her prison time, a man she saw once in Chicago has some revealing photos of her and Grace feels the pressure. Can Malice detroy what she worked so hard to heal and build? How can she and Charles get past this? Will he ever look at her the same way?
A look into the stark reality of domestic abuse and how children are swept into it. Grace was such a strong character and she never gave up. I wanted to cry when she revealed the horrors she went through. Superb writing Ms. Steel, very intelligent reading...

Tracy Talley~@

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VERY TOUCHING!!, March 7, 2001

By 

"sbcrazee" (Conway, AR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Malice (Paperback)

This is the first Danielle Steel book I've read. It was really easy to "get in touch" with the characters in this book. Great plot, great characters, GREAT WRITING! For some people, the subject matter may not sit well - some parts of the story are graphic in content. You'll definitely need to keep a box of tissues next to the bed while you're reading this one. It brought tears to my eyes. Very touching story but sadly, some people are like Grace Adams in the real world. It really makes you step back and take a look at things like child abuse and domestic violence. The message this book gave to me was, "If Grace Adams can make it through what she's been through, so can I!!"

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, November 15, 2004

By 

Miss Sophia "brightlight_00" (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Malice (Paperback)

I believe this novel is truly Danielle Steel's best works.

Grace Adams is a loner. She hardly has any friends when she graduates high school. Yet, everyone who admires her father thought that he has a perfect family. See, Grace's father is a sucessful and wealthy lawyer in town. Her mother dotes on her family.

But, what everyone did not know is that the Adam's family harbor a dark secret--a secret that was deadly which ends with shocking and scaring effects. When Grace's mother dies, Grace believes it is the end. She does not have to deal with her father anymore. Yet, on that fateful night you find out that Grace's father is a horrible, selfish, disgusting and cruel monster. On the surface, everyone believes he is the honorable man in their community, but behind close doors, he is evil fiend who rapes his daughter. What is worse is Grace's mother is so sickly in love with her husband, she sacrifices her daughter to keep her husband sexually satified.

When her mother dies, it is the end of Grace's father sexual abuse to her. In self-defense, Grace shoots her father after he brutally rapes her. The naked and frighten young woman is scared when the police officers come, but what do they do? They believe that Grace was the one who tried to have sex with her father, became angry and shot him. Instead of Grace defending herself, explaining that her father had raped her--had been raping her for all these years, to protect his image and her mother's image, she keeps silent as she is arrested and put in jail.

Molly and David find out Grace's secret and try to help her, yet it is too late. Grace is sent to a women's prison for two years, and she is about to endure the same kind abuse as her father did to her until two cellmates decided to place her under their protection. They want Grace to succeed in the world. When Grace leaves prison, she sets out into the world--believing she will be granted a fresh start--even then, the world betrays her with its cruelty as her father did all those years ago.

Yet, Grace keeps haboring her secret. She is too ashame of her past until she meets Charles McKenzie. Until then, she realizes she wants to try to live the rest of her life as functional as possible, and she does. Charles gives her what she wants--a full functional life with children and a family. Grace is very happy being a mother, wife, and advocating for abuse children. Years later, Charles decided to run for Congress, and Grace is behind him 100% until...malice starts to taint their lives. This time Grace will not like it escalate!

In this profound and inspiring story, Grace Adams learns not to be the victim--she learns to fight back and reclaim her life and what is important in her life. As she struggles to confront all her past demons, once and for all, she learns that people are malicious...and sometimes, you have to be malicious in return.