From the author of the deservedly popular A Woman of Substance
(1979), this bland, trudging story of three generations of stubborn
women is pure going-through-the-motions formula writing without the
slightest leavening of wit or passion. The story begins in Woman of
Substance territory - Yorkshire, England, in the early 1920's -
where a child of genteel poverty, plucky young Audra Kenton, is
forced by almost Dickensian circumstance (the early deaths of her
parents, a cruel-hearted aunt) into the working world; she takes a
job as a nanny with a well-to-do Leeds family and there meets
construction worker Vincent Crowther, who is beneath her station
but looks like Robert Taylor - five months later they're married
and she's regretting it, since he likes to hang out with the boys
and runs to his mother at the first sign of trouble. But after the
birth of their daughter Christina in 1931 (an earlier child had
died of meningitis), Audra is stricken with new purpose: through an
act of will she will give Christina everything she herself has been
denied (faced with this maternal determination, Vincent clears his
throat a few times and begins to gray charmingly at the temples -
the fate of most of Bradford's married men). World War II passes
(blink and you miss it) and it's 1951. The story now belongs to
Christina, who through her mother's scrimping and saving and
backbreaking labor has just been admitted to the Royal College of
Art in London - the plan is for her to become a brilliant landscape
painter. But when Audra falls ill due to overwork, Christina
decides to chuck it all and make some bucks as a designer; almost
overnight she becomes a "superstar in the international fashion
firmament" and is able to take care of a protesting Audra in style.
The only interesting complication of the book arises when Christina
becomes pregnant by a married M.P., but Bradford deus ex machinas
her way out of it with unseemly haste (a freak car accident causes
a miscarriage) and sends Christina to New York, where she marries a
shrewd businessman who makes her a house-hold word. The novel is
framed by a 1978 Prologue and Epilogue that show Christina's
19-year old daughter, Kyle, refusing to go to work in her mother's
fashion empire - she will become a famous landscape painter. Full
circle, and not soon enough. This is billed as a three-generational
saga, but more than half of its zestless expanse is devoted to
Audra, who is a drone; Bradford hurries through Christina, and Kyle
is just an afterthought (but beware the lurking sequel). (Kirkus
Reviews)
"From beloved bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes the
enthralling saga of three generations of extraordinary women--of
the fate that befalls them, and the choices that define their lives
"IN THE NAME OF LOVE.
Orphaned after the death of her mother, well-bred Audra Kenton rose
from selfless nurse to servant of an affluent suffragette, to a
fiercely independent bride whose passionate marriage was overtaken
by an unforeseeable tragedy. Now Audra has but one dream--to bestow
upon her brilliantly artistic daughter, every opportunity that she
was denied
AT THE HEART OF AMBITION.
Given the world, the stubborn Christina has forsaken the wishes of
her noble mother to forge the career of her choice--that of a
glittering Manhattan fashion empire she hopes to bequeath to her
own daughter. But in young and beautiful Kyle stirs a spirit that
is inherently headstrong, equally independent, and just as
ironically resistant to the sacrifices made in the name of love.
FOR THE SAKE OF A DREAM.
From the picturesque Yorkshire Dales to the "haute couture"
luxuries of Paris and London to the bittersweet respite of home and
family, three women face stunning betrayals and astonishing
reversals of fate as each brings her own intimate struggle to their
need of personal success and to a triumphant and heartening
understanding of devotion, duty, and destiny.
General
Imprint: |
HarperCollinsPublishers
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
June 1993 |
Authors: |
Barbara Taylor Bradford
|
Dimensions: |
178 x 111 x 34mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Mass Market
|
Pages: |
528 |
Edition: |
Reissue |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-586-05850-3 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-586-05850-8 |
Barcode: |
9780586058503 |
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