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.