From Publishers Weekly
Can this be, as advertised, the final episode in the Harte family saga?
A Woman of Substance (1979), the story of Emma Harte's triumph over poverty and illegitimacy to found England's greatest department store, and its four sequels were huge bestsellers. Now Emma's great-granddaughter, Linnet O'Neill, must defend the empire and family against evil uncle Jonathan Ainsley. But words such as "granddaughter" and "uncle" don't do justice to the complexities. It takes four and a half pages of front matter to enumerate the Harte, Kallinski and O'Neill clans whose intertwining lives drive the saga. Emma's descendants offer a helping hand to new in-laws—and the reader—by uttering sentences such as these: "Through his great-grandfather, Winston the First, Emma
is Gideon's great-great-aunt. But she is also Gideon's great-grandmother, because Emma was
my grandmother." Weddings and funerals keep the local caterer busy and offer crescendos of activity, if scant emotion. Although Ainsley's malevolence hovers behind the story and leads to near disasters, there's never a doubt that the strong women will triumph—though not without struggle. Series devotees will take heart at the ending, which hints that Ainsley's evil will survive his death and the struggles will continue offstage even if Bradford lays down her golden pen.
(Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From AudioFile
The saga of the Harte family began with A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE, the compelling story of Emma Harte's rise from poverty and illegitimacy to found England's finest department store. This story, ostensibly about Emma Harte's great-grandchildren, is a disappointment. Terry Donnelly does a credible job portraying the various British aristocrats. But the characters themselves are not likable, and the plot is bogged down in detail and in trying to tie the current generation to the past. Further, the characters' adulation of a great-grandmother long dead seems unhealthy to this listener. This is one series that should have stopped a generation or two ago. A.C.P. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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