Review: Emma's Secret by Barbara Taylor Bradford

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I believe I Mooched this book, once I got into the series.  I finished it last night.  This is the fourth book in the Harte saga, and it was just as good as the rest of the series.  This book begins to focus on the fourth generation of Hartes, Kallinskis, and O'Neills.  Emma's great-granddaughter, Linnet, daughter of Paula, has begun to work at Harte's, and the beginning of the book focuses on her.  It follows the great-grands as they attempt to continue Emma's legacy in the business world at the beginning of the new millennium.  The book also introduces a mysterious stranger in the person of Evan Hughes.  She looks so much like Paula, could she be a long-lost Harte?

The structure of the book was in three sections, starting out in the year 2000 with Linnet, then moving back to the Second World War, with Emma, and then back to "present-day" 2001, focusing again on the great-grandchildren.  I liked this structure - it gave me a chance to revisit Emma, who is still my favorite of Bradford's characters.  There is a secret that Emma has kept since WWII.  What is it?  Who does it involve?  Why wouldn't Emma have told any of her family about it or at least given them the tools to figure it out themselves?  What consequences would it have for these characters?

I don't have too much more to say about the book.  It's just as good as any of the others in the series, although the first is still my favorite.  More corporate suspense and intrigue, more romance, more interesting British history.  Four out of five Whatevers. Recommended for anyone who has enjoyed this series already!

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