Product Description

The book the fans have been waiting for: the much-anticipated sequel to the phenomenally successful A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE. The legendary Emma Harte, the heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns in this sweeping saga of power, corruption, love and secrets! Paula O'Neill, beloved granddaughter of Emma Harte and the guardian of her vast business empire, believes all that Emma left to the family is secure. However, beneath the surface tension is mounting and sibling rivalry brewing. Into this volatile mix walks Evan Hughes, a young American fashion designer. Her grandmother's dying wish was that Evan find Emma Harte. But Emma has been dead for thirty years! Troubled by Evan's presence, and her uncanny resemblance to the family, Paula turns to Emma's war-time diaries. Emma Harte comes vividly back to life. It is London during the Blitz. As bombs drop, sirens wail and her sons go off to war, Emma's trademark resilience, will power and strength all come to the fore. And as the pages unfurl, Paula discovers the secret Emma took to the grave.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26393 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 688 pages

Review
'A sweeping saga full of passion and intrigue!a gripping read' Hello! Praise for Barbara Taylor Bradford: 'The storyteller of substance' The Times 'Few novelists are as consummate as Barbara Taylor Bradford at keeping the reader turning the page. She is one of the world's best at spinning yarns.' Guardian 'Queen of the genre.' Sunday Times

About the Author
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born and raised in England. She started her writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post and later worked as a journalist in London. Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became an enduring bestseller and was followed by twenty-three others, including the bestselling Harte series. In 2006 The Ravenscar Dynasty began an epic new family series around Ravenscar and the house of Deravenel. Barbara's books have sold more than eighty-one million copies worldwide in more than ninety countries and forty languages. In October of 2007, Barbara was appointed an OBE by the Queen for her services to literature. She lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford.

Customer Reviews

Please keep it secret...
After seeing the other reviews, I embarked on this book with a certain amount of trepidation, having read the previous three in the saga some years ago, and sadly I felt it lived right down to my expectations. It felt over-written, under-edited, and thereby could have been fitted on to half the amount of pages. Excess stressing of the beauty of the characters (well, I know we expect them to all be lovely, but is it necessary to have everyone they meet mentally admiring their perfections?) combined with a rather unlikely scenario of the busy Emma finding time to visit the Houses of Commons on the right day to listen to Churchill's most famous war-time speech made the whole experience rather tedious.

I found it rather incredible that Emma could lay her hands on so much food to support the people in the bombed West End, practically climbing over the rubble to deliver it from baskets... I KNOW this is fiction, but surely in War-time people didn't just have a whole store full of game pies casually at their disposal? My suspended belief had trouble in remaining so. The modern day part was not especially intriguing - even the wait to the end to discover Evan's real family felt like a hard grind.

"To Be The Best" was possibly a sequel too far, but I feel this one really is money for old rope. And heaven help us, there's another on the horizon in the form of "Unexpected Blessings". Is the Unexpected Blessing the fact that Mrs Bradford is hanging up her pen after that one? I have been forced to go back to "A Woman of Substance" to see if it was as good as I'd thought when I first read it at the age of 19. And actually, yes, it's not bad. It moved me in the right places and was an inspiring tale.

On the plus side, someone thoughtfully bought this for my birthday present, so I didn't actually have to spend any money on it - on the down side, I will be forced to read "Unexpected Blessings" out of sheer curiousity and bloody-mindedness. Although I will wait till it's half-price in Smiths or Tescos. Or possibly buy it second-hand from a charity shop...

A totally unnecessary sequel
This is probably the worst book I have ever read. It draws shamelessly on previous books, and also on events which have already taken place to show how incredibly smart Emma Hart was i.e. Winston Churchill, the Greatest Briton (as seen on BBC)(what was the point for all this anyway?), how she felt we will win the war etc. The over-long descriptions of clothes, furniture, rooms, etc., made several times by different characters makes it really tedious reading. I have to say, I loved a Woman of Substance and therefore this was extremely dissappointing. A totally unneccessary sequel.

Not much of a secret - Emma
I was very disappointed in this book. I have read and enjoyed A Woman of Substance and To Hold The Dream and was therefore keen to read this book and find out what happened to the next generations of the Harte Family. Unfortunately the "secret" of the title was very predictable. Also the plot line concerning Johnathon Ainsley was thin and not developed properly, leading to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Also, the middle chapters, concerning Emma Harte during WWII were poor and seemed to be an advertisement for the Winston Churchill appreciation society. These endless references to Churchill were annoying and did not add to the plot of the book at all. I felt that much of this was simply page filling which I think is unworthy of Ms Taylor Bradford.