What do you think were Danielle's motivations for starting her business?

Do you think that Danielle's motivation for starting her business was external, internal, or both, and what makes you feel that way?

Her motivation was survival, both her own and her families. I did, however, find it a little unrealistic that she could create a line of perfumes and accompaniments along with a clothing line from her one room apartment while looking after two little kids and a sick mother. It didn't quite ring true with me.

Survival. Providing for herself and her loved ones.

I do think that she needed to provide for her family and that she had knowledge and talent for creating and marketing perfume. The author did set up the reader for the fashion talent also, but I agree that with all of Danielle's responsibilities it was somewhat unrealistic to do more than the perfume business.

Danielle was smart enough to realize that she could never get ahead on just a salesclerk's wages and with her perfumery background it would have been foolish not to develop and market a perfume. However, I agree with rebajane and sarap that it seemed improbable that Danielle's business could be so successful so quickly and that she could develop both a perfumery and fashion business, take care of things at home and STILL manage to go out on the town with Cameron. I think most women wouldn't believe she could do all of those things while not sleeping at night because she was worrying about Nicky and the Nazis coming after her....

Danielle had this resourceful ambition that refused to keep her down for too long.
She gladly grabbed opportunities and had a midas touch.

That being said, it was almost a fairytale.

Danielle had to use whatever means she could to survive. Fortunately she was a talented woman who could turn her talents into a business..however, being so talented that she could highly succeed in two different areas made it unrealistic to me. I think she should just have concentrated on the perfume industry part and left the clothing part out of it.

Clearly Danielle was motivated by her family's history, her passions for perfume and clothing design, and her desire to provide for her family in the absence of any other source of income. Starting her own business also appeared to satisfy her need to be in control of her own destiny.

Two reasons, she knew she was going to have money and she also had a love of the perfume business and wanted to get back into it. I also agree with "rebajane", I think her rise to success was part of the story that did not make sense. It was like the author wanted to finish story in a hurry.

She wanted to make money because of her financial responsibilities and lack of anyone to help her. She wanted to work with perfume as she always had.

Being in the perfume business was part of her past and something that she knew she could be successful doing and she needed to do something to provide for her family. I agree with everyone else, that the author adding in her success with the fashion business was a bit over the top.

I agree with all of the above comments that Danielle should have just focused on the perfume business as that was in her DNA. Weaving memories of different scents and paralleling them with her life experiences would have been awesome to those of us that love fragrance. Most of us are transported by scents to certain memories. Wish the author would have explored that more.

She had grown up in a very active family and continued when married. She also really liked what she was doing. Then, of course,she knew she had to support her family as no one else was there. My only concern is that she seemed to make money too quickly and worked with the attorney lore than I would have expected.

kellilee said exactly what I was going to say. Continuing her family business, love of scent's and supporting her family.