Breaking the Rules

August 31, 2009
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.

October 1, 2009
A woman recovers from a traumatic assault by becoming a top model, with no help from her illustrious kin.

Veteran bestseller Bradford (The Heir, 2007, etc.) lays the groundwork with a prologue set in the English countryside that describes a hit gone wrong. A contract killer pauses to rape his target, giving her time to clobber him with a rock and escape. Weeks later, this resilient young woman has taken an assumed name,"M" for short, and moved to Manhattan to wait tables while making the rounds of modeling agencies. The child of powerful, wealthy parents, M conceals her identity to prove she can make it on her own. With her Audrey Hepburn-esque gamine charm—and the author's impatience with anything resembling an actual obstacle—"M" can't not succeed. Soon, French designer Jean-Louis Tremont must have M as the face of his new haute couture line. Instant global fame is sweetened by engagement to Larry, the talented scion of a storied London theatrical dynasty. Larry's own family issues have contributed to his Vicodin addiction, but after a near-overdose, he speedily reforms. To avoid hoopla, the couple marries secretly. In Paris, M's runway debut merits thunderous applause, but she sprains her ankle offstage just before the catwalk collapses, injuring other models and spectators. It was tampered with, and at first the disaster is chalked up to terrorists. Bradford conceals M's origins until about two-thirds of the way through her usual doorstop-sized tome. So as not to ruin the questionable surprise, suffice it to mention that ancestral skeletons are rattling closet doors, and that terrorists are pussycats compared to the Famous Family's nemesis, back from the dead to wreak havoc.

Clunky structure and tedious exposition will not deter Bradford's fans.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2009
The heroine of Bradfords newest sprawling novel is a beautiful young woman who goes only by the letter M and has a charming penchant for quoting lines from great literary works. She is trying to put a terrible attack that happened when she was a teen behind her, and at age 23, she leaves England for New York in the hope of becoming a supermodel. When her resemblance to Audrey Hepburn draws the attention of an acclaimed photographer, her star appears to be on the rise. When she meets dashing English movie star Laurence Vaughan, its love at first sight. After a whirlwind courtship, Larry proposes and M happily accepts. Though M battles a few setbacks along the wayLarry has an addiction to prescription drugs, and the photographer is killed in a car crashits not long before M is living her dream as a world-famous supermodel. But Ms success comes hand in hand with danger, because the person who wanted her dead years ago still has it in for her. Devoted Bradford readers will be pleased to find a connection with her long-running Harte family saga, and all will be happy to dwell in the glamorous world of Bradfords sophisticated characters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)