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A Woman of Substance (Emma Harte Saga #1)
From "New York Times" bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes a triumphant novel of an unforgettable woman Determined to rise above all that she has ever known, a young and impoverished Emma Harte embarks on a journey first of survival, then of unimaginable achievement. Driven to succeed, the iron-willed Emma parlays a small shop into the world's greatest departme...more
Paperback, 911 pages
Published
August 1st 1994
by HarperTorch
(first published 1979)
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Far too long. Far too much "colloquial dialect" in the parts dealing with Emma's young life. If edited, the story could be better, but still not really memorable.This book even contains some very surprising grammatical errors (which were obviously not intentional, as those in Emma and her family's tedious dialect were)
The seduction scene in the cave drags on and on until one thinks the characters will be to old to act upon their desires. Hardly necessary devote that much time leading up to the o...more
The seduction scene in the cave drags on and on until one thinks the characters will be to old to act upon their desires. Hardly necessary devote that much time leading up to the o...more
This is a very long, verbose book that has a good story buried among its endless descriptions of, well, just about everything. This book left a lot of unanswered questions in my mind, and there were a lot of times when I was skimming through the long, boring descriptions of Emma's furniture and
china and walls and clothes and the color of the sky and the degree of greyness of the clouds - ack!! The interactions between the characters were generally quite good, but it was like slogging through mu...more
china and walls and clothes and the color of the sky and the degree of greyness of the clouds - ack!! The interactions between the characters were generally quite good, but it was like slogging through mu...more
Long and indulgent. Way too many words. And it makes me sad that there isn't a moral compass for the characters in the book. "Paul had patiently explained to her that their combined wealth set them above the usual conventions, making them invulnerable to social censure, and she admitted the truth in what he said. Her natural self-confidence and courage soon overcame her earlier misgivings."
"Tell me, did you discover anything special along the way that you would like to impart to your old friend...more
"Tell me, did you discover anything special along the way that you would like to impart to your old friend...more
Magnificent, a spellbinding saga in life
Advantages: truly captivating, can boost your will
Disadvantages: none
A bestselling book by Barbara Taylor-Bradford, A woman of substance is a spellbinding saga in life that will instill within your heart, the will and drive to succeed. This is the first of the six novels about Emma Harte and her family, among others are Hold the Dream, To be the Best, Emma's Secret, Unexpected Blessings and Just Rewards. A Woman of Substance is really one of the best novel...more
Advantages: truly captivating, can boost your will
Disadvantages: none
A bestselling book by Barbara Taylor-Bradford, A woman of substance is a spellbinding saga in life that will instill within your heart, the will and drive to succeed. This is the first of the six novels about Emma Harte and her family, among others are Hold the Dream, To be the Best, Emma's Secret, Unexpected Blessings and Just Rewards. A Woman of Substance is really one of the best novel...more
I'm not entirely certain how I feel about A Woman of Substance. It was a NYT Bestseller in the 1970s, so I feel like the writing style, etc was a bit dated. My main complaints were that the author loved to use big, impressive words and described everything in super detail. I'm all for using good vocab, but sometimes a simple word does the job best. Also, the dialogue seemed a bit forced and unnatural, and the main character HAD NO FAULTS. None. Except that she was born poor. It was kind of irrit...more
Jul 25, 2011
Lisa (Harmonybites)
rated it
1 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Those Who Love Trashy Books
Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List
Shelves:
chick-lit,
fiction,
historical-fiction,
novels,
popular-fiction,
romance,
ultimate-reading-list
I love historical fiction, and to my mind there aren't enough that focus on the drama of building a business, so the premise of this appealed to me. It's the rag to riches story of a British woman who went from lowly maid to powerful head of a business empire in the early 20th century when women weren't by and large able to rise to such heights.
However, the writing style here was puerile romance aisle, and far too wretched to make me willing to stay with this for over 900 trade paperback pages....more
However, the writing style here was puerile romance aisle, and far too wretched to make me willing to stay with this for over 900 trade paperback pages....more
I remember the TV series adapted from Barbara Taylor Bradford's novel with Jenny Seagrove in the lead role. It was a good adaptation if memory serves correctly. It is only now many years later that I have finally read the book.
For that time Emma Harte is something of a woman holding the fort in a man's world. Yes, she had enemies but she had friends too who respected her brains, acute business acumen and sheer willpower. In present day she could be compared to many successful businesswomen. Born...more
For that time Emma Harte is something of a woman holding the fort in a man's world. Yes, she had enemies but she had friends too who respected her brains, acute business acumen and sheer willpower. In present day she could be compared to many successful businesswomen. Born...more
1 like · like · see review
When I first began reading this book, I didn't think I was going to be able to make it through. There were a few things this author did that caused me some minor annoyances. It was hard to develop any true feeling toward Emma in the beginning of the book because many of her thoughts seemed contradictory. The beginning is really slow going. Also, this author likes to make extremely long-winded descriptions of interiors, which I find detract from the plot, especially when a character is ruminating...more
My all-time favorite book/story.
I will re-read and re-read this book time and again.
The beginning of a large saga, this book captures the hearts of anyone who loves a great story and one with a young girl named Emma who has a "Plan with a capital P." Emma stays true to her plan and in the meantime we are learning all about her and her circumstances as a young child in poverty. Emma's strength and willpower is inspiring.
Anyone who has a dream of their own will enjoy reading about a young woman w...more
I will re-read and re-read this book time and again.
The beginning of a large saga, this book captures the hearts of anyone who loves a great story and one with a young girl named Emma who has a "Plan with a capital P." Emma stays true to her plan and in the meantime we are learning all about her and her circumstances as a young child in poverty. Emma's strength and willpower is inspiring.
Anyone who has a dream of their own will enjoy reading about a young woman w...more
6 likes · like · see review
This was a long book. Which was fine because it gave you a chance to become acquainted with the characters and you weren't left wondering about the backstory. However, as I got to the end of the book it felt really rushed. Like the author thought I only have so many pages left I need to wrap this up. That being said I became really involved with the characters and it was a really good novel.
I liked how Emma was so driven and became a great sucess. However, she was sort of a crappy mom especiall...more
I liked how Emma was so driven and became a great sucess. However, she was sort of a crappy mom especiall...more
Read this book several years ago, and still think about the characters at times. The main character begins life as a servant to a wealthy family, falls in love with one of the sons and becomes pregnant. While pregnant, she leaves that household and moves to a city to start life on her own with her new baby. Beginning with a small food market, she is able to build a large empire and becomes an extremely wealthy woman. Near the end of her life, she wishes for her granddaughter to take over the bus...more
Emma Harte is the owner of retail empire and one of the richest woman in the world.
Rising from a humble beginning as a servant in rural Yorkshire, Emma's fate change when he falls in love with the son of the manor and fell pregnant and the said son (named Edwin) refused to take responsibility.
What starts as owning one shop as a mean of survival, soon develop into two, three and in few years expanding into an empire.
Though her business expanded beyond her wildest dream, her personal life is in...more
Rising from a humble beginning as a servant in rural Yorkshire, Emma's fate change when he falls in love with the son of the manor and fell pregnant and the said son (named Edwin) refused to take responsibility.
What starts as owning one shop as a mean of survival, soon develop into two, three and in few years expanding into an empire.
Though her business expanded beyond her wildest dream, her personal life is in...more
I love this book! It literally took me months to get through because it is a very large book and in a way it does read slow. Barabra Taylor Bradford is a very elegant writer and I love the way she describes things in such great detail. I think i got smarter just reading this haha. But I love a sweet story of rags to riches. I fell in love with Emma and her strength. She motivated me to want to strive for more and not let things get in the way. Times were hard back then and so many parts of the b...more
I read this book when it was first published and considered it one of my favorites and a "I must read this book again." Now some 40 years later I have begun to read the series again I have not been disappointed. Yes it is a long book, yes there are long descriptive passages of furniture and clothing, but all of this should remind the reader of the time period in which Emma, her friends, her opponents and her family live. A time not like today but a woman who would must likely succeed in today's...more
Mar 04, 2012
Faith
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Women of any age
I thought this was a great book! It was so good that I read the series. While the rest of the series didn't equal this one, it was still a fine series. Emma Harte is a once in a lifetime character. Her story was well done, the other characters were superbly written and I couldn't put id down. I have re-read this book several times over the years and just recently recommended it to my daughter. The story has everything - love, friendship, fear, loathing, heartbreak. While I was reading it was as...more
“Success is the best revenge”
You said it sister! Emma Harte, our lead protagonist, explodes out of my ipod with pragmatic defiance. Though sweet in temperament and kind in nature, she is definitely not a woman to be crossed with.
Emma didn’t have the luckiest start to life: born to an impoverished Yorkshire family, seduced at the age of 15 and having to carry the burden of an ill mother. Fortunately she was blessed with a firm faith in self and unfaltering resourcefulness...Read More...
You said it sister! Emma Harte, our lead protagonist, explodes out of my ipod with pragmatic defiance. Though sweet in temperament and kind in nature, she is definitely not a woman to be crossed with.
Emma didn’t have the luckiest start to life: born to an impoverished Yorkshire family, seduced at the age of 15 and having to carry the burden of an ill mother. Fortunately she was blessed with a firm faith in self and unfaltering resourcefulness...Read More...
36 pages of insufferably bad writing was enough to convince me that I would not make it through 910 pages of it. Everything described in such minute detail, with adverbs piled on adjectives piled on multiple subordinate clauses in every sentence. Everything told; nothing shown. It's maddening. A few reviews seem to suggest that it gets at least marginally better after the first section, but I just can't do it. I also gather that the story itself is half decent, so maybe if someone makes a mini-s...more
Saw it as a TV series when I was barely 10. Giving me inspiration ever since. I read the book in class 11th. Re-read it again a couple of years later.Some say it's long, I say it's not enough. loved the chemistry between edwin and Emma and again Paul and Emma. Hated the husbands in between. The jars of homemade jam, the betrayal by Edwin, the scene up in the mountains between Edwin and Emma, the friendship with Blackie, the assault by Edwin's brother, the death of the father, all still fresh in...more
I enjoyed this classic rags to riches story of Emma Harte, a poor servant girl who decides that she is going to become fabulously wealthy and powerful. She succeeds in this beyond anything anyone could imagine. This LARGE (over 900 pages) novel tells her story from her teen years to her 70s. Some parts moved a little slow, but I liked the full story of Emma's life. Very glamorous look into the lives of the rich and powerful. A cross between Dynasty and Lives of the Rich and Famous. I will be loo...more
I remembered reading this book years ago and I really liked it, so I thought I'd give it another go. I hate to say it but I didn't enjoy it the second time round. I didn't like Emma Harte at all.........she took revenge to a whole new level and I lost any feelings for her because of her blinkered view of the world. Yes she'd been wronged very badly by the Fairleys, but did she need to keep her hatred all those years. I even felt a little sympathy for her eldest four children. I still love Blacki...more
I have given other books 5 stars in the past, but this one TRULY deserves it. My mother read this book when it first came out in the late 70's and she still says it was one of her favorite books. She has told me a few times over the years to read it and I always read something different - thinking that a book that was almost as old as I am couldn't possibly be worth the time. I was wrong. However, you aren't going to find a Kindle edition and you're not going to find it in the book section at BJ...more
Returned from a month at the beach, took this one along as a perfect beach read and yet found I could barely get through it. One of those rare instances of a TV miniseries (which I just watched yesterday) being far better than the book it was based on-clearly, because here the storyline is more engrossing than the narrative. Author's writing simply leaves a lot to be deaired, too wordy and descriptive for the story to make sense. This is a particular problem for a popular book without literary p...more
May 13, 2012
Maggie
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
realistic-historical-fiction,
chic-lit
This book was realistic fiction at its finest. I felt the "nod" of previous works such as Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, even short stories like "The Yellow Wallpaper"... then put that in a blender with 80s classics like Dallas and Dynasty and you have this fabulous book. This isn't a work for everyone - the early parts of the book are intensely descriptive, again like those great British literature works, listed above, so there is great description of the sweeping moors, t...more
Published in 1979. Nice rags to riches story with interesting "follow ups" on the various characters. Definitely a novel of its time though. Very enjoyable as long as you are not expecting a "serious read". Bradford (b 1933 ) has a journalistic background and the discipline that this entails helps to keep the story moving along. The Times Rich List for 2009 ranks Bradford at 344 with a stated worth of £166m. Details from the Times includes the following "Resident in New York, Bradford, 74, star...more
Comes to mind when I think of "favorites". This book was a best seller in the 70's. I read it twice when I was in my late twenties and will probably re-read again. Warning-it is long and wordy. The author descibes every detail with long, elaborate descriptions from emotions to silver patterns. That is one reason I enjoyed this book- I loved getting lost in the details but it may be tiresome to some. A rags to riches story based on hard work and a sharp mind. I was fascinated with the life of Emm...more
Have read this 3 times, loved it most the first time in my mid twenties... Would have given it a 5 star review back then. Now I see some weaker parts, but am so nostalgic about this book. Love her rise from the bottom up. Emma has such confidence throughout most of the book, so bold with her instincts and decisions... wish I was more like her in some ways - but glad I am not in others (not the worlds greatest mother- a bit frosty) She is quite the "dame" - in a good way... and love her elegant s...more
This book was on my Christmas list and I am so glad I got it! I love to start my summer with an epic novel and this one did not fail me. I can't believe I read 900 pages in a week, didn't do much else obviously. I did not realize that this book continues with another and another and another and another...get the idea. I guess this will be the summer of the UK. After all this, I should be going to the Queens Jubilee-but whatever. In the beginning Mrs. Bradford added some big words that combined w...more
I enjoyed this novel. I think that Bradford is a solid writer. I don't know much about that time period, but to me, it's fairly believable. Though the concept of poor girl becomes rich and powerful is slightly cliche, I think Bradford tells the story and makes the characters unique enough that she creates an interesting story. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series - Bradford pulled me into the story and made me want to know more about the characters' lives and what happens after...more
Jan 19, 2010
Kim N - Lost-In-A-Book
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2010-reads
I have to admit that I did not "completely" read this book. I read the first 80 or so pages, skimmed through the middle and read the last chapter. In the little bit that I read, I was able to get the idea of the story and I liked the story. However, this book is just not my style, it has far too much detail and character development, I'm a simple reader and typically don't need quite so much information. There are exceptions of course and there are some long, detailed books that I have enjoyed,...more
Version française: L'espace d'une vie
Bonne histoire d'une femme qui se hisse en haut de la société et qui gagne sa richesse par son intelligence et son sens des affaires.
Si l'histoire est agréable à lire, il semble que l'auteur ait copié des anecdotes de différents livres (que je n'ai pas lus... c'était donc du nouveau pour moi). Le renom de l'écrivaine en est ainsi entaché.
2.5/5 ... à cause de la polémique et parce que l'histoire est divertissante.
Bonne histoire d'une femme qui se hisse en haut de la société et qui gagne sa richesse par son intelligence et son sens des affaires.
Si l'histoire est agréable à lire, il semble que l'auteur ait copié des anecdotes de différents livres (que je n'ai pas lus... c'était donc du nouveau pour moi). Le renom de l'écrivaine en est ainsi entaché.
2.5/5 ... à cause de la polémique et parce que l'histoire est divertissante.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| reveiw | 15 | 62 | Jan 25, 2013 11:32am |
Barbara Taylor Bradford is the author of 25 bestselling novels, including Playing the Game, Breaking the Rules, and The Ravenscar Dynasty. She was born in Leeds, England, and from an early age, she was a voracious reader: at age 12, she had already read all of Dickens and the Brontë sisters. By the age of twenty, she was an editor and columnist on Fleet Street. She published her first novel, A Wom...more
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“We are each the authors of our own lives, Emma. We live in what we have created. There is no way to shift the blame and no one else to accept the accolades.”
—
1,602 people liked it
“Life always gets harder towards the summit - the cold increases, responsibility increases”
—
14 people liked it
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Dec 06, 2012 08:57pm
Dec 22, 2012 11:12pm