Novelist Danielle Steel to wed for fifth time

February 26, 1998
Web posted at: 4:56 p.m. EDT (1656 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- Best-selling romance novelist Danielle Steel told a newspaper Thursday that she plans to marry for the fifth time, wedding venture capitalist Thomas J. Perkins.

The 50-year-old writer, who has sold some 380 million books worldwide, said her love affair with Perkins bloomed during a correspondence that served as the inspiration for her next book, "The Klone and I."

"I actually wrote the book as a Christmas present for him," Steel told Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle.

Perkins, 65, who helped found high-tech giants Genentech, Compaq and Tandem Computers, is also a founding partner in the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Steel has been married four times before and has seven children and two stepchildren. She recently completed her 70th book, "His Bright Light," a nonfiction work about her son Nicholas Traina who died in September of a morphine overdose.

Perkins, a widower with two grown children, is known as an avid sailor who was knighted by the king of Norway in 1996 for his philanthropic work and efforts to preserve Norwegian ruins.

Steel said the two planned a small ceremony for family and friends in San Francisco, but would not reveal the exact date, the Chronicle said.

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