Years ago I read A Woman of Substance, Bradford's first book about Emma Harte. It was basically a romance novel, but I knew that when I started it. It told the story of an unusual woman who pulled herself up from nothing to found a wealthy department store chain in Great Britain.

The first book was interesting because of the changes in the characters' lives and their loves, etc. This book is about the lives of Emma's grandchildren, who are hard workers and decent people despite having lived in great wealth all their lives.

Bradford keeps repeating a lot of details that we got the first time she told us. Also, she stresses the great wealth and impeccable taste of Emma and all her descendants to the point where it gets tiresome. She decribes the outfits different characters are wearing in great detail, which is unnecessary. We get it. They are fabulously wealthy and have good taste--not to mention a high-end department store at their disposal!

Another problem with the book is that the books all center around three families that started from nothing and built great wealth, but they keep intermarryng with each other. You have a lot of cousins marrying. We learn nothing about school friends because none of them seem to have any friends outside of the families. Adding an occasional outsider to the family tree would not be a bad thing!

I still enjoyed the book. I knew it was a romance when I started it as opposed to all the books that pretend to be more serious, then have the main characters in love at the end.