Just Rewards - Softcover

Bradford, Barbara Taylor

4.02

2,465 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312941455 ISBN 13: 9780312941451

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2006

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Can this be, as advertised, the final episode in the Harte family saga? A Woman of Substance (1979), the story of Emma Harte's triumph over poverty and illegitimacy to found England's greatest department store, and its four sequels were huge bestsellers. Now Emma's great-granddaughter, Linnet O'Neill, must defend the empire and family against evil uncle Jonathan Ainsley. But words such as "granddaughter" and "uncle" don't do justice to the complexities. It takes four and a half pages of front matter to enumerate the Harte, Kallinski and O'Neill clans whose intertwining lives drive the saga. Emma's descendants offer a helping hand to new in-laws--and the reader--by uttering sentences such as these: "Through his great-grandfather, Winston the First, Emma is Gideon's great-great-aunt. But she is also Gideon's great-grandmother, because Emma was my grandmother." Weddings and funerals keep the local caterer busy and offer crescendos of activity, if scant emotion. Although Ainsley's malevolence hovers behind the story and leads to near disasters, there's never a doubt that the strong women will triumph--though not without struggle. Series devotees will take heart at the ending, which hints that Ainsley's evil will survive his death and the struggles will continue offstage even if Bradford lays down her golden pen.

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Review:

Praise for Barbara Taylor Bradford:

‘The storyteller of substance.’ The Times

'Queen of the genre.' Sunday Times

‘Few novelists are as consummate as Barbara Taylor Bradford at keeping the reader turning the page. She is one of the world’s best at spinning yarns.’ Guardian

From the Back Cover:

Linnet O'Neill, great-granddaughter of Emma Harte, finds herself following in the footsteps of the original woman of substance as she battles to save the family business Emma created from a tiny shop. She and Emma's other great-granddaughters face heartache and tragedy and are tested to the limit as the final chapter in the extraordinary story of the Harte family draws to a dramatic close...

Linnet O'Neill returns from her honeymoon full of fresh ideas for bringing the Harte empire into the new century. But she and her mother, Paula, matriarch of the dynasty, lock horns in a battle about the future. But when Paula falls ill, Linnet finds herself alone at the helm, just as her great-grandmother once was. Will she become the new Emma Harte, as so many have predicted?

Evan Hughes, American great-granddaughter of Emma, is pregnant and planning her small family wedding. Life seems good until a harsh confrontation with her adopted sister puts Evan in hospital. And after her marriage, tragedy strikes, putting Evan under enormous pressure to support Linnet at Harte's.

Tessa Fairley, Paula's daughter, is ready to start a new life after an acrimonious divorce, and is madly in love with the Frenchman Jean-Claude Del�on. But having always believed herself to be her mother's rightful heir, and jealous of Linnet, Tessa is reluctant to forego her chances of the top spot and is caught in a painful dilemma between her heart and her head.

India Standish, in the midst of planning her own glamorous summer wedding in Ireland, is thrown off balance when her fianc� Dusty's daughter Atlanta comes to live with them - closely followed by Dusty's unstable ex-girlfriend, intent on trouble....

However, it is Evan's sister Angharad who makes the most ripples within the family, trying to infiltrate the quartet of young women and latching on to Jonathan Ainsley, deadly enemy of the Hartes, in the process putting them all in danger when the Harte family finds itself grieving and vulnerable.

The four young women need to draw on the strength of character and determination inherited from their formidable great-grandmother to win through. But then two beloved members of the Harte family unexpectedly die, causing grief and heartbreak. And Jonathan Ainsley seems ever closer to wreaking his revenge...

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