Fans will be interested. Everyone else, mystified.
Emma Harte returns, though not in the flesh, for a hefty fourth in the series that began with the bestselling A Woman of Substance (1979).
The gold-flecked blood of a true retailer flows in the veins of Linnet O’Neill, great-granddaughter of the legendary Emma Harte, founder of the world-famous department store that stands in Knightsbridge to this very day. Like her ancestor, Linnet loves to roam the misty moors in pink-cheeked solitude, warbling like the wild bird she’s named for, crushing the fragrant heather underfoot, just aglow with the glory of it all, not to mention the ladylike ambition to sell that burns within her soul. And she is but one of Emma’s many descendants, born on the right and wrong sides of various blankets (of pure wool trimmed with silk, madam, and just feel the quality). Meet Linnet’s mother, Paula McGill Harte Amory Fairley O’Neill. (How’s that for crossbreeding?) Linnet’s nearest and dearest include Tessa, Lorne, Toby, Gideon, Lady India, Chloe, Fiona, Emsie, Desmond, and that’s just for starters. The Hartes and the O’Neills and Kallinskis (clans founded by friends from Emma’s youth) have gone forth and multiplied indeed. A handy genealogical chart is provided for the hopelessly confused. Meanwhile, back at the store, Linnet is setting up a display of eighty years’ worth of fashion, basking in the approving glow of her great-grandmother’s painted portrait smile. Pages of gushy descriptions of assorted frocks follow, plus a few steamy sex scenes tucked in here and there. Then—aha! Emma’s diary is found. Though the great lady has been dead for decades, those still living are reluctant to read it. Perhaps it holds further secrets. Oho! It seems that Emma’s long-ago secretary, gorgeous Glynnis, was pregnant by an Unknown Admirer when she married a nice American GI. Could the Unknown Admirer have been a Harte? If so, which one?
Fans will be interested. Everyone else, mystified.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-30702-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003
IN THE NEWS
Energetic melodrama in straightforward style from the ever-popular Michaels (Plain Jane, 2001, etc.).
Just what did happen under the Judas tree so long ago?
Cady Jordan suffered a head injury when she flew through the air on a bicycle attached to a cable slung from the Judas tree—and, years later, she still doesn’t remember much about it. Her childhood buddies dared her to do it, and someone threw a rock that killed Jeff King, the neighborhood bully, who jumped on the bike with her at the last minute. The papers had a field day, even accusing ten-year-old Cady of killing teenaged Jeff, but the case was never resolved. Partially paralyzed for three years after the accident, Cady presently lives alone, in California, writing technical manuals for a living. Now, 20 years later, her ailing grandmother, a former movie star who took a stage name so as not to embarrass the strait-laced family, summons Cady to her Pennsylvania mansion. Cady gets a German shepherd for company and drives off to meet her legendary grandmother. Lola turns out to be quite a character, of course, at once imperious, kind, loving, self-absorbed, etc. She’s buried six husbands and is bedridden with osteoporosis, but she’s determined to help her granddaughter find happiness. When Cady’s friends hear she’s back in town, they convene to rehash the old case, well aware that they’d let everyone think Cady was the guilty party. Andy and Amy Hollister say they were throwing rocks to get Jeff away from Cady. Peter, a lawyer, doesn’t think they can prove it. Boomer Maxwell, now chief of police, gets involved, and the small town is abuzz as reporter Larry Denville digs through old clippings and investigates up a storm. At long last, the culprit feels remorse, tries to wash away the guilt under a scalding shower—and ends up in a burn ward.
Energetic melodrama in straightforward style from the ever-popular Michaels (Plain Jane, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2003
ISBN: 0-7434-5778-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
A hard-cover debut from McNaught (sudsers like Almost Heaven and Kingdom of Dreams) links—in a contentious, sizzling-sheets romance—a Chicago department-store heiress/exec and a self-made corporate king. Between the first pash and the final nuptial flight, there're pages and pages of buzz about business and betrayals. Meredith Bancroft, only offspring of the ruthless president of Bancroft & Co., had pushed romance aside—all she wanted at 18 was to fill her father's male-chauvinist trotter-prints to head Bancroft. Then entered Matt Farrell, a lowly mechanic from rural Indiana: ``His features looked as if they had been chiselled out of rough granite.'' Meredith (with ``a nose that sculptors would envy'') was a mere pebble of fate, and there followed a volcanic coupling, a pregnancy, and marriage. But, alas, Meredith, back with furious Daddy, suffered a miscarriage...then waited in vain for Matt—who believed she'd had an abortion and who wanted a divorce. Eleven years later, Matt, having risen to heights at which he's interviewed by Barbara Walters and ``emanates raw, harsh power,'' and Meredith, still held from power by Dad, clash. There's a nasty surprise about the long-ago divorce, and Matt makes some surprising demands. Will they never blurt out their separate versions of what happened 11 years before? Yes, but as romance-readers know, that takes time—here filled with stony silences, the biting of lips, and awesome lapses into Love. There's also a good deal of corporate takeover talk (nothing strenuous), fancy clothes, food, and digs. If not absolute paradise for McNaught fans, at least a sunny easement to the beach—where this will be an inevitable summer companion. (Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for August.)
Pub Date: July 8, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-60129-6
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
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