''No Greater Love'' is a novel by

Danielle Steel Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel (born August 14, 1947) is an American writer, best known for her romance novels. She is the bestselling author alive and the fourth-bestselling fiction author of all time, with over 800 million ...

. It tells a fictional story based on the true event of the sinking of the . It is Steel's 28th novel.

Plot summary

In 1912, after visiting her aunt and uncle in England, Edwina Winfield, her parents, younger siblings and her fiancé, Charles, travel back to the United States on the maiden voyage of the . When the ship sinks, Edwina's fiancé and her parents die. After being rescued, Edwina and her siblings return to their home in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, where Edwina takes on the responsibility of raising her younger siblings. Some of her friends want Edwina to move on and find a new fiancé, and Ben, a family attorney, falls in love with her but Edwina doesn't want to marry, only raise her new family. Edwina's father was the owner of a newspaper, and Edwina helps keep the newspaper running, expecting her oldest brother, Philip, to take over once he's finished his education at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. However, Philip enlists in the army during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and dies in combat. A younger brother, George, tries to help but has no interest in the newspaper and eventually leaves for

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

, wanting to become a movie producer. Edwina sells the newspaper and also inherit money from the aunt in England. George finds success in Hollywood and the younger sister Alexis desperately wants to be a movie actress. She runs off with a much older man, to England. Edwina goes after her, stepping on a boat for the first time since the Titanic disaster more than a decade earlier. On the boat, she falls in love with a man who turns out to be a cousin of her fiancé Charles. They have a short love affair but he is (unhappily) married and can not divorce because he is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. When she returns to the US, Edwina realizes she is now over Charles and can move on with her life and that she is in love with Sam, George's father-in-law, a movie producer.

Adaptations

The novel was the basis for a made-for-TV movie, ''

No Greater Love The term no greater love is derived from a well-known verse of the New Testament (John 15): "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". This specific excerpt may refer to: Books, films and TV * ''No Greater ...

'' (1996), starring

Kelly Rutherford Kelly Rutherford (born November 6, 1968) is an American actress. She is known for her television roles as Stephanie "Sam" Whitmore on the NBC daytime soap opera ''Generations'' (1989–1991), as Megan Lewis on the Fox primetime soap opera ''Melr ...

Reception

Publishers Weekly called the novel "predictably sentimental."

References

1991 American novels Novels by Danielle Steel Novels about RMS Titanic American novels adapted into films American novels adapted into television shows Delacorte Press books American romance novels {{1990s-romance-novel-stub