Family Secrets [Mass Market Paperback]

There were too many coincidences, too many far-fetched plot developments and too many one-dimensional characters for my liking. And I felt that Erin's behaviour reeked of meddling. First, although her mother didn't want her to, she rushed off to England to find her mother's family. Then she tells an eighty-year-old man she'd only just met that the daughter he'd thought died fifty-five years ago is alive and that she's the man's granddaughter - did she want Giles to have a heart attack there and then?! Long-lost relatives are introduced to each other with no preparation - Kate's mother is given no choice about whether she wants to meet the daughter she'd thought was dead. And as for the decision to keep quiet about one major character still being alive, that was simply incredible.

It was clear that Bowden knew the UK reasonably well, but her knowledge was quite out of date. The EEC ceased to exist in the early 1980s; it became the EC and then the EU. No politician, especially of Simon's standing, would get that wrong. Other inaccuracies also jolted me out of the story: for instance, as the direct heir to an earldom, why wasn't Simon a Viscount? Had his father still been alive, he would have been The Honourable Simon Houghton. (As Leader of the Opposition, he becomes Right Honourable by virtue of being a Privy Councillor, but this is different). And finally, why on earth would a producer for UTV live and work in London? UTV, as its name implies (Ulster Television) is based in Northern Ireland; its production staff would at the very least *work* in Belfast.