A woman of Substance Author:Barbara taylor Bradford Emma Harte Lowther Ainsley is seventy eight years old and one of the richest, most powerful women, in the world. Self-reliant and ruthless, she used money as a weapon and adversity as a tool. — In her poverty-stricken youth, Emma exhibited and uncommon amount of initiative and intelligence even as a maidservant on a Yorkshire estate. Pregnant and... more » unwed at fifteen, she fled her shameful situation to seek anonymity in a grimy manufacturing town. Here the cogs of machinery would become wheels of fortune for the enterprising young woman. Her business began as a small food shop of homemade treats and expanded into a major department store. At the age of twenty-five she was a successful business woman, and by fifty she was an international corporate power.
Emma's ambition, sacrifice, and fearless optimism had built a financial empire deficient in only one commodity=persona happiness. Between ill fated romances and discordant marriages she fought death , war, even her own children plus the haunting memory of her first love. Only two men-one a friend, one a lover-would tear Emma's mind away from the all absorbing business with which she tried to fill her empty heart. One would be a source of strength throughout her days., the other would produce the most devastating crisis of her long life.
A long and satisfying novel of money, power, and passion with contrasting glimpses of the stark realities of poverty alongside the grandeur and opulence of the English gentry.« less