Piers Dudgeon,Woman of Substance

Woman of Substance

Piers Dudgeon

St. Martin's, November 2006, $25.95

ISBN: 0312353405

This biography takes a close look at popular women's fiction novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who has sold over seventy million books since her first novel. A Woman of Substance was issued in 1979. Ms. Bradford was born in Leeds over seven decades ago, into a relatively modest background. Yet her mother, a nanny expected great things from her; pushing her to succeed way beyond the daughter of a laborer or a nanny. Ms. Bradford does quite well at Fleet Street before marrying Bob Bradford and taking New York by storm. A Woman of Substance is the acme of her success, feeding a mass of sequels and TV shows. This is a fascinating biography aimed at readers who enjoy British romantic fiction. Though Ms. Bradford is an interesting author, her fictionalized characters take charge of her bio, as Piers Dudgeon takes his audience on tours of locales used by Ms. Bradford in her novels and compares those to the writer's home locations, especially as a child. With over fifty illustrations to augment the text, fans of the author will appreciate this fine homage, while others will pass.