1. A Woman of Substance
In 1905 sixteen-year-old Emma Harte leaves service at Fairley Hall after betrayal and an unplanned pregnancy. Refusing the poverty and dependence expected of her, she turns practical intelligence and relentless work into a growing Yorkshire enterprise, expanding from a small shop into an international network of…
2. Hold the Dream
At eighty, Emma Harte prepares to transfer control of her international retail and investment empire to her granddaughter Paula. The inheritance is not simply financial: Paula is charged with preserving the standards, loyalties and determination that enabled Emma to build the business against formidable opposition. Paula’s…
3. To Be the Best
After Emma Harte’s death, Paula O’Neill becomes the principal guardian of the family empire. Her control is threatened by rivals prepared to exploit division within the dynasty, and she must manage commercial interests stretching from Yorkshire to the United States and Hong Kong while protecting those…
4. Emma’s Secret
Paula O’Neill believes the Harte inheritance is secure until Evan Hughes, a young American fashion designer, arrives with a final request from her grandmother and an unexplained resemblance to the family. Her presence intensifies existing rivalries and directs Paula toward Emma Harte’s newly discovered wartime diaries.…
5. Unexpected Blessings
Emma Harte’s great-granddaughters confront different tests of belonging and inheritance. Evan Hughes attempts to join the family she has only recently discovered, Tessa Longden fights for custody of her daughter, Linnet O’Neill faces the sacrifices demanded by leadership, and India Standish challenges family expectations through an…
6. Just Rewards
Linnet O’Neill is preparing to lead the Harte businesses into a new century, but her plans bring her into conflict with her mother Paula and deepen her sister Tessa’s belief that she has been denied her rightful inheritance. When Paula becomes seriously ill, Linnet must assume…
7. Breaking the Rules
After a frightening encounter in the English countryside, a young woman escapes to New York and adopts the name M. Her beauty and determination carry her into international modelling, and her marriage to actor Larry Vaughan appears to complete the secure new life she has created…
8. A Man of Honour
Five years before the opening of A Woman of Substance, thirteen-year-old Shane “Blackie” O’Neill is orphaned in County Kerry and leaves Ireland for Leeds. Living with his uncle and working as a navvy, he learns a trade among the expanding city’s construction projects and begins to…