(18).
Kate's future husband, Tom, was a well-known football star, who lived a very public, prominent lifestyle, also. At the beginning of the novel, he swept Kate off her feet and married her. The income he earned as a football player, allowed him to give her the kind of life that she had grown accustomed to. Before their lives together went bad, they enjoyed vacations at extravagant locations. Steels writes, "They spent two weeks in Paris, a week in Cannes, five days in Dakar and a weekend in London. Tom spoiled her rotten and she was thrilled. Life was even better than before" (38).
The protagonist in Steel's novel, Lightning, is Alexandra Parker; Alexandra also lived a very upper class, prominent life. Alexandra was an attorney, who dealt with very high profile, noteworthy cases, as Steel explains: .
Alexandra Parker was a litigation attorney. and she handled an interesting assortment of difficult cases. She was the firm's first choice when the fight was going to be hard and dirty and you needed an attorney who knew case law and was willing to spend a million hours doing meticulous research. (2).
Lightning focuses mostly on the relationship between Alexandra and her husband, Sam. Their high social status in the community is best revealed when Steel shows them through their maid's point of view, the maid.
bragged a lot about Alex and Sam, and how important they were, and how hard they worked, and how successful. Sam was in the financial columns a lot. He had made a big splash early on, and had continued to make news frequently with record-making deals for important clients. And Alex had been on television more than once, with exceptionally newsworthy or landmark cases. (20).
The Ranch is a novel about college friends: Mary Stuart and Tanya; both of these friends have very prominent, successful lives. Mary Stuart is the least accomplished, because she did not have an outside career. But, she is still very successful and important in the community.