Danielle Steel has a new book coming out! What a delight for her millions (and millions) of fans! With the release of Steel's novel The Cottage set for Feb. 26, the intrepid BookPage editorial team set to work rounding up all the latest information on this publishing phenom, this San Francisco socialite, this mega-mom dedicated to her brood and her career.

But a quick call to the Delacorte publicity department dashed our hopes. The weary publicist quickly informed us there would be no telephone interview with Danielle Steel, no e-mail Q&A, not a shred of information forthcoming from the author herself. Ms. Steel, it seems, no longer does book tours or other publicity to promote her books. And, after all, who can argue with an author whose every book shoots straight to the top of the bestseller list?

Her new novel, The Cottage, is sure to follow that trend. In it, an aging Hollywood legend (who bears some suspicious similarities to George Hamilton, one of Steel's recent escorts) finds his career headed south. With no major movie roles to buoy his bank account, he's forced to take in two tenants at his elegant Bel Air estate. This unlikely trio finds some surprises in store as their lives converge at the Cottage.

As to Ms. Steel, in lieu of an intimate conversation with the author, BookPage offers a sampling of facts and figures from a life worthy of a romance novel:

The Danielle Steel Index

460 million: number of Steel's books sold

$60 million: reported value of Steel's contract for a five-book deal in the early 1990s; we assume her most recent contract, signed with Delacorte in 2000, would be worth considerably more.

55: rooms in her elegant Pacific Heights mansion overlooking San Francisco Bay

54: number of novels she has written

22: TV movies based on Steel's books

1947: Year of Danielle Fernande Dominique Schuelein-Steel's birth in New York

19: age at which she wrote her first novel

1983: First year that one of Steel's books made the Publishers Weekly annual list of the year's top 15 bestsellers. At least one of her books has made the list every year since.

1 million: typical first printing for a Steel hardcover novel

3: number of new Steel hardcover novels published in 2001. She typically publishes at least two new books each year.

9: children she has raised, including two stepsons

5: number of ex-husbands

2: husbands who have served time in prison; a third was convicted of manslaughter for his role in a yachting accident in the south of France

5: number of miniature Brussels Griffon dogs the authors owns; other pets include a rabbit, a parakeet and a pot-bellied pig

3: number of personal assistants on Steel's staff

1: position on bestseller list expected for her latest effort, The Cottage

0: number of interviews the publicity-shy Ms. Steel will give to promote her book Copyright 2002 BookPage Reviews