Everyone in Washington knows Madeleine and Jack Hunter. Maddy is an award-winning TV anchorwoman. Jack is the head of her network, an adviser to the president on media issues. To the world, theirs is a storybook marriage. Two brilliant careers. A long, loving partnership. But behind the locked doors of their lush Georgetown home, a very different story emerges. For as Maddy's career soars, a bitter edge has crept into Jack's words, a pattern of subtle put-downs, control, and jealousy that Maddy has always tried to ignore and deny. For Maddy, there are no bruises, no scars, only the daggers of fear, humiliation, and isolation. Their effect is as powerful as the gun, the knife, or the fist, the wounds as deep. Through hard work, long years, and with Jack's help, Maddy has become a role model and a star. It seems impossible to believe that a woman the nation idolizes lives in degradation and fear. Only Maddy knows the terror in her heart. Her secrets are well kept, sometimes even from herself.

Maddy's journey to healing begins when the president's wife offers an extraordinary opportunity, the chance to join her newly formed Commission on Violence Against Women. There, Maddy hears chilling stories from terrified wives and girlfriends that sound eerily familiar. And there she comes to know Bill Alexander, a distinguished scholar and diplomat who also works on the commission. Bill suspects that something is terribly wrong in Maddy's marriage and begs her to open her eyes.

Set against a backdrop of world-shattering events, Journey is a story about abuse in its subtlest forms. With wisdom and compassion, best-selling novelist Danielle Steel reminds you that no one is exempt from the effects of this devastating disease, which crosses social boarders and has no respect for money, power, or success. But at its core, Journey is about hope, about change, and about daring to be free.