What kind of books does Barbara Taylor Bradford write? Are they romance novels?
…not the formulaic Harlequin type. She started by writing about strong women who rise from nothing to positions of power (somewhat like her own life, where she was born in Leeds and worked her way up from a typist at 15 1/2 years old to an editor on Fleet Street at age 20). She is interested in the dynamics of power, revenge and inheritance and how things that happen in one generation affect other generations. Her books are very well researched and cover a lot of details about the setting, whether it is the world of retail sales or Hollywood or turn of the 19th century. Her best known book, which was made into a movie, is “A Woman of Substance,” from 1979. A summary from her web site: “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 department store and an international business empir
