The True Meaning of Love

by Danielle Steel

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

This powerful novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel is a stirring story of the lives of ordinary people during wartime.

February 24 is the eighteenth birthday of a Ukrainian ballet school student named Vlad. It also happens to be the day that the first bombs of the 2022 Russian attack land on his homeland. As life for every person in the country is turned upside down in a moment, Vlad is immediately called up to serve in the military. But as much as he wants to defend his country, he is desperate to get his girlfriend, Tatyanna, an orphan whose only home has been the ballet school, out of the country.

With their home under siege, Tatyanna tries to make her way to safety in Poland. Also joining the refugees is Yulya, who is torn between getting her young children across the border and staying at the side of her husband, Symon, and her elderly parents, Petro and Oxana, who refuse to abandon their home. As millions flee, Vlad and Symon join a volunteer civilians’ unit to fight. Even elderly citizens like Petro and Oxana are given AK-47s, though soon starvation becomes as much of a threat as the encroaching troops.

Sasha, an obstetrician, and Anton, a surgeon, who are secretly lovers, stay behind to treat the never-ending waves of wounded. When the Russians bomb hospitals, the heroic couple finds themselves delivering babies in bomb shelters.

Through the stories of Vlad, Tatyanna, Yulya, Symon, Sasha, and Anton—each struggling to protect their loved ones and preserve their own humanity—Danielle Steel tells a gripping and deeply moving story of regular people surviving as a war rages around them.

Release date: August 11, 2026

Publisher: Dell

Print pages: 256

Sample

Chapter 1

Madame Natalya rapped out the rhythm with a cane she always kept near her to point to something, like one of the girls who had danced particularly well or poorly. The dreaded cane. She had a severe, pale, very white face with jet-­black hair pulled tightly back in a bun and eyes that saw everything. She was rail thin and wore a black leotard and her pink satin toe shoes to class. She was ageless. No one knew how old she was. She had come to Ukraine twenty years before when she retired as the ballet master of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. The authorities and the Ministry of the Arts wanted an equally excellent ballet school in Ukraine, and so she came from Moscow, “on a broomstick,” the girls liked to whisper. They hated her until they danced with other companies and realized how well trained they were, and then they came back to visit her and thank her. She liked seeing her old students and was warmer to them after they graduated.

The senior class was made up of young men and women who performed with the Kyiv National Ballet and still attended dance classes daily, as well as rehearsals when they were performing. Their entire lives centered around and were consumed by the ballet.

Madame Natalya was merciless. She saw every leap, every step, every mistake, every flaw, every breath, and pounded her cane harder, as the man at the piano played the pieces she had selected. Swan Lake was her favorite, as all her students knew.

“Higher!” she said to Vlad as he leapt across the room. He had come from Moscow to study with her. His mother was a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet and had also studied with Madame Natalya when she was a student. She wanted her son trained by the same relentless teacher who had taught her so well, so she had sent Vlad to the ballet school in Kyiv. Vlad’s mother was Russian and his father Ukrainian. He liked living in Ukraine, although he would go back to Moscow soon, when Madame Natalya thought he was ready for the Bolshoi Ballet’s high standards. She always said he didn’t leap high enough. She wanted him to soar like a bird, as though he had wings. He was seventeen, and tomorrow he would turn eighteen. He was a beautiful boy with straight blond hair almost to his shoulders, high cheekbones, and green eyes. His father was one of the choreographers of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Vlad had been dancing since he was three, as they all had. The students stopped attending academic school when they were twelve or thirteen, and were tutored every morning. After they finished their lessons and completed their assignments, they had half an hour to eat lunch, and then they had class all afternoon, followed by rehearsal, and evening performances if they were currently dancing with the Grand Kyiv Ballet.

Vlad was born in Kyiv, and lived in Moscow with his parents, until they sent him back to Kyiv when he was eight, and he lived in the ballet school dormitory, as many of the students did. Vlad’s parents visited him when they had time, which wasn’t often. The performance schedules were intense in Moscow.

Vlad’s favorite dance partner was Tatyanna, the girl he had been in love with since he was fifteen. She was already eighteen and lived in the women’s dormitory. She had come to the school from an orphanage, where an astute teacher had guessed her talent early on. Of all the young women in the senior class, Tatyanna was the most talented and the most graceful. Vlad felt as though he could do anything when he danced with her. Dancing with her was magical and made him stronger. They were an exquisite pair. She was blond like Vlad, with delicate features and blue eyes. She was Ukrainian and her parents had died in an accident when she was two and so she went to the orphanage. At four, she became the youngest student ever to be sent to live at the ballet school. The government paid for her training. She had already toured with the Grand Kyiv Ballet three times, once to Warsaw, once to Vienna, and once to Paris. She floated across the studio with infinite precision as Madame Natalya nodded, watching her.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Tatyanna, perfect. Do you see that?” she said to the other students. “She floats like a butterfly, like an angel. She lands like a rose petal drifting to earth,” she said.

“. . . Except when she drinks vodka,” the girl next to Tatyanna whispered, and Tatyanna remained expressionless, using all her self-­control. The girl next to her was Yana, her best friend other than Vlad, who was her boyfriend. Yana was impeccably trained, as they all were, and technically a good dancer, but she didn’t have Tatyanna’s talent, that extra ephemeral ingredient that few dancers had. Yana didn’t begrudge her friend her talent. She loved her and was proud of her. They slept in beds next to each other in the dormitory, and it was Tatyanna who had comforted Yana when she came to live at the school at six. It was a great honor to be accepted by the school. The training was every bit as rigorous as that of the dancers in the Bolshoi Ballet, although there were fewer dancers in the Kyiv Ballet. The country was proud of their ballet and their dancers, with good reason. They were meticulously trained and beautiful to watch.

Yana was destined for the corps de ballet and not to be a prima. Madame Natalya was certain that Tatyanna would be famous one day. Tatyanna didn’t remember her parents, and had no living relatives. At eighteen, the school had been her home for fourteen years.

Madame Natalya dismissed the class precisely at five. The students rushed to the dressing rooms to shower and change into street clothes. They moved like dancers, graceful even in jeans and heavy boots and warm jackets. It was freezing outside in February.

Vlad and Tatyanna and Yana had no rehearsals that day since they weren’t in any performances at the moment, and wouldn’t be for another two weeks. Rehearsals for Giselle started next week and would be grueling.

“We’re taking you to dinner tonight,” Yana announced to Vlad as they left the building. The dormitory building was next door. The main building was all studios for classes on the upper floors and had a beautiful auditorium. Tatyanna left them for a few minutes and came back with a suspicious-­looking white box, and Yana had a small bottle of vodka in her pocket. They were going to a restaurant nearby that the dancers went to often to celebrate Vlad’s birthday, since he was turning eighteen the next day. Yana had to have dinner at her parents’ house that day, so they were celebrating Vlad a day early. He and Tatyanna would go out the next night alone. He put an arm around her as they walked to the restaurant in the icy air, and he hugged Yana with the other arm. The three of them were best friends, and Vlad and Tatyanna were discreet lovers when they had the opportunity. Yana wasn’t jealous of them. She loved them both. She had dark brown hair, warm brown eyes, and had to be careful what she ate. She wasn’t as naturally thin as Tatyanna, so even a small slice of Vlad’s cake would be a luxury for her. Madame Natalya weighed them all weekly to be sure they hadn’t gained an ounce. Weight gain was not tolerated. Tatyanna could eat whatever she wanted. She was the perfect size for a ballerina, not too tall and not too small. Yana was slightly shorter, and better suited to the corps de ballet.

They ordered hot tea as soon as they walked into the restaurant, and they loved the home-cooked meals it was known for. The younger girls and boys who lived at the school had to eat there, but at eighteen all three friends were considered adults and had more freedom. If they did drugs, got in trouble, or had a problem with the law, they would be expelled immediately. None of them had ever been in trouble, although Yana was mischievous when she was younger, and still was at times. She loved playing tricks on the others, which Madame Natalya strongly disapproved of, when she caught her.

The waiter served the cake for them when they finished the meal, and Yana quickly poured a shot of vodka into each of their teacups. They toasted Vlad and Tatyanna kissed him.

“Tomorrow you’ll be eighteen,” she said, and he leaned closer to her and kissed her again. Yana was used to them kissing all the time when they were away from the school, and far from Madame Natalya’s eyes. Madame thought romance was a waste of time. She had never married, the ballet was her entire life.

They took a short walk after dinner in the cold night air, had another sip of the vodka, and went back to their dormitories. They had to be up at six the next morning. It was a grueling, disciplined routine. Yana went home sometimes on the weekend to her family, her parents and her grandmother, who lived nearby in Vorzel. She had no siblings. She was their pride and joy.

Vlad and Tatyanna had nowhere to go. She had no family, and his parents were in Moscow. The ballet school was home.