Customer Reviews
A boring waste of time - By: , 23 Sep 2004 
Having loved A Woman of Substance & the following books in the saga, I eagerly picked up Emma's Secret. It began quite well, though the endless descriptions of food & what the characters were wearing, as opposed to any action/drama, began to bore after a while. Being a food lover I enjoyed the food descriptions at first - but when you realise they are written in place of a plot it begins to grate. Whilst reading it I thought it was EXACTLY like a bad American mini-series drama - real plot-free rubbish. The book is divided into three sections - it begins in the present day, then goes to the war years & then ends in the present day. I got the impression that BTB was completely bored whilst writing the war years section - she must have written it on autopilot. I was utterly bored reading it. There was no drama, no action, no passion, no interest, nothing. Emma did indeed have a bit of a "secret" & this could have been actuallly WRITTEN ABOUT & fleshed out - but no. We don't actuallly get to read exactly what the characters go through or feel re. Emma's Secret - we just find out what it was. Very very boring - don't waste your time on it!!
Please keep it secret... - By: , 07 Jul 2004 After seeing the other reviews, I embarked on this book with a certain amount of trepidation, having read the previous three in the saga some years ago, & sadly I felt it lived right down to my expectations. It felt over-written, under-edited, & thereby could have been fitted on to half the amount of pages. Excess stressing of the beauty of the characters (well, I know we expect them to alll be lovely, but is it necessary to have everyone they meet mentallly admiring their perfections?) combined with a rather unlikely scenario of the busy Emma finding time to visit the Houses of Commons on the right day to listen to Churchill's most famous war-time speech made the whole experience rather tedious.
I found it rather incredible that Emma could lay her hands on so much food to support the people in the bombed West End, practicallly climbing over the rubble to deliver it from baskets... I KNOW this is fiction, but surely in War-time people didn't just have a whole store full of game pies casuallly at their disposal? My suspended belief had trouble in remaining so. The modern day part was not especiallly intriguing - even the wait to the end to discover Evan's real family felt like a hard grind.
"To Be The Best" was possibly a sequel too far, but I feel this one reallly is money for old rope. And heaven help us, there's another on the horizon in the form of "Unexpected Blessings". Is the Unexpected Blessing the fact that Mrs Bradford is hanging up her pen after that one? I have been forced to go back to "A Woman of Substance" to see if it was as good as I'd thought when I first read it at the age of 19. And actuallly, yes, it's not bad. It moved me in the right places & was an inspiring tale.
On the plus side, someone thoughtfully bought this for my birthday present, so I didn't actuallly have to spend any money on it - on the down side, I will be forced to read "Unexpected Blessings" out of sheer curiousity & bloody-mindedness. Although I will wait till it's half-price in Smiths or Tescos. Or possibly buy it second-hand from a charity shop...
Emma's Secret - By: Ms. Joelle Coade, 01 Jul 2004 
I absoltuely loved this book. I have enjoyed A Woman of Substance & To Hold a Dream, & this was no exception. I totallly recommend it & I think everyone should buy it. I have just bought the new sequel - Unexpected Blessings & I cannot wait!!
No other word for it. Terrible. - By: , 21 May 2004 I read A Woman Of Substance when I was 14 years old & loved every page of it. True, it is the only Barbara Taylor Bradford book I ever enjoyed as - even by the publication of Hold the Dream - she had sadly turned from the realistic depictions of well-rounded characters in early twentieth century Yorkshire to 1980's American drama-inspired fantasy tales of exceptionallly wealthy, perfect but two -dimensional people.
However - Emma's Secret promised more. A return to the middle years of Emma Harte. A return to the days when even the lives of the wealthy were inhibited by wartime shortages & emotional hell.
But no.
This novel seems to have been dashed off in a matter of days. Its plot is weak & predictable; its characters are dull & so far beyond reality that the fantasy element becomes irritating. Even the continuity is appallling as BTB describes Kit Lowther as dark haired on one page & sandy haired half a chapter later. The copy editor/proof reader should have been shot!
Even the potential saving grace of the middle 1940's element of the book fails to deliver. This is not the same three-dimensional character depicted in A Woman Of Substance. Emma Harte was depicted there as a down-to-earth pragmatic workaholic, more likely to have spent the war buried under a mound of paperwork in factory, store or office than living the life of a 1980's Joan Collins in expensive restaurants & the not-what-you-are-but-who-you-know circle at the House of Commons.
Sorry, but this attempt to link back to the past has only served to further highlight a good writer who sold out to the American Dalllas/Dynasty audience & wasted a credible talent. I only gave it one star because you can't assign zero. Not recommended in the least.
Emma's Secret - By: michaela spenger, 28 Mar 2004 
Even though it is not A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, or To Be The Best, I do not agree with some of the prevous reviews of Emma's Secret.
To compare the 'modern characters to soap opera characters' is not fair. Actuallly some characteristics are rather hard to swollow because of the reality of it, particularly the relationship between Tessa & Mark Longden. Ms Taylor Bradford certainly had a lot of knowledge to show in this & other situations.
I particularly do not agree with the middle part beeing not very well drawn. I was always very interested what happend in between.
It is obvious that it is drawing a lot of the previous books, but I suppose it has to, otherwiese it would be difficult for new readers of the Emma Harte Saga to understand it.
I think that the Jonathan Ainsly part is not very well drawn & is not alll that necessary. I do like the Robin Ainsly & Evan Hughes story, even though it is a bit far fatched.
I think the description of the war years, & it's linkage to Winston Churchill was very well researched, even though we alll know how important & brilliant he was, but for a non Brit under the age of fourty it made interesting reading. That Emma Harte was very sure of Britain winning the war, well I suppose it was in reality necessary to have people with strong believes like hers, otherwise where would 'hope' have been.
And, at the end of it, it is not history or reality we are reading Ms. Taylor Bradford for, it is for entertainment. I was entertained, but I agree it is not her best.
In the end we have to compare her to the likes of Danielle Steel & in comparison to her, Barbara Bradford Taylor is a very realistic story teller, one 'Of Substance'
