Coming Out
by By Steel, Danielle
Category: Fiction , Romance , Contemporary

Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a busy legal career, a solid marriage, and a way  of managing her thriving family with grace, humor, and boundless energy. With twin  daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartner from her  second marriage, there seems to be no challenge to which Olympia cannot rise. Until  one sunny day in May, when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the  most exclusive coming-out ball in New York–and chaos erupts all around her.  One  twin’s excitement is balanced by the other’s outrage; her previous husband’s profound  snobbism is in sharp contrast to her current husband’s flat refusal to attend.  For  Olympia’s husband, Harry, whose parents survived the Holocaust, the idea of a blue-blood  debutante ball is abhorrent. Her daughter Veronica, a natural-born rebel, agrees– while Veronica’s identical twin, Virginia, is already shopping for the perfect dress.  Then there’s Olympia’s ex, an insufferable snob, who sees the ball as the perfect  opportunity for a family feud. And amid all the hubbub, Olympia’s college-age son,  Charlie, is facing a turning point in his life–and may need his mother more than  ever.  But despite it all, Olympia is determined to steer her family through the  event until, just days before the cotillion, things begin to unravel with alarming  speed.  From a son’s crisis to a daughter’s heartbreak, from a case of the chicken  pox to a political debate raging in her household, Olympia is on the verge of surrender.  And that is when, in a series of startling choices and changes of heart, family,  friends, and even a blue-haired teenager all find a way to turn a night of calamity  into an evening of magic.  As old wounds are healed, barriers are shattered and new  traditions are born, and a debutante ball becomes a catalyst for change, revelation,  acceptance, and love.  In a novel that is by turns profound, poignant, moving, and  warmly funny, Danielle Steel tells the story of an extraordinary family–finding new  ways of letting go, stepping up, and coming out...in the ways that matter most.