For the 30th anniversary of her first novel, A Woman of Substance
, Bradford delivers her 25th book. The riches-to-more-riches tale features beloved matriarch Emma Harte’s plucky great-granddaughter, M, who, at 23, moves to New York to start a modeling career, banking on her intelligence and business savvy, her Audrey Hepburn looks and her well-connected friends to help her. A violent attack had compelled M to leave behind a life of privilege in London, and from her new home in a shared Chelsea brownstone, M begins her ascent, eventually landing on the catwalks of Paris and falling in love with a famous British actor, though her successes soon attract the attention of family enemies. The plot, while contrived, satisfies on the fashion-and-passion front, and, as always, at the heart of the action stands a determined heroine scrambling up the ladder of success supported by minor characters, each with a complicated backstory. Fans will not mind if the connections holding them together seem tenuous. (Oct.)
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Reviewed on: 08/31/2009
Release date: 10/01/2009
Genre: Fiction
Hardcover - 418 pages - 9780312578060
Compact Disc - 11 pages - 9781427208484
Library Binding - 606 pages - 9781602855946
Mass Market Paperbound - 495 pages - 9780312578077
Other - 432 pages - 9781429987523
Paperback - 514 pages - 9780007304097
Hardcover - 484 pages - 9780007304073