Breaking the Rules (Emma Harte Series Book 7)

This is like 2 books.The first half is about ‘M’, who tells everyone her name is Marie Marsden, apparently she was always called M and M at school. She made up new identities for her siblings, her sister had a boutique, her brother was in catering or something and her eldest sister was the most beautiful person in the world. If she wanted to stay anonymous, why did she become a top model and consequently have her face splashed across every newspaper in the world.Since when did she always refer to Linnet as Birdie, it’s never been mentioned in any of the previous books!!All done to try and throw the reader off the scent, but we are not stupid Barbara.Low and behold in the second half, it’s revealed who she really is, no s***t Sherlock, so cue the rest of the Harte family!!Once again, we learn about the decor in the upstairs parlour, which hasn’t changed in decades, so 2 pages of description, which I imagine the author just needs to cut and paste from all the other books. The staff still know their place, Jack is still a know all and likes to talk in riddles, Linnets husband Julian conveniently dies of a heart attack, everyone peruses the menu, but all end up having the same, Linnet is still the image of her saintly great grandmother and there’s absolutely no mention of other key characters from the previous books, what happened to Emily, Evan, Gideon and India?And don’t even get me started on Jim and David dying in a plane crash?At least good egg Edwina is no longer leading the troops into battle!!And if Jack is the best in the world at his job, why did so many people end up getting hurt and it took a 19 year old to finish off Jonathon?This book is an absolute shocker and written purely for the sake of it. Rant over, I feel better now.

Easy to read from beginning and just can’t put down.

a good follow-up a bit pithy

Found some of it repetitive, and some unbelievable about Johnathan Ainsley, to have so much surgery and be able to come back from the dead! And such a young girl to be a bodyguard for the russian and fall in love with him, she was paid to protect but she did it out of love, had she had been caught she would have been jailed, he was letting her take the wrap even though he said he loved her. There was so much that wasn’t in any depth technically. Always they have the best looking family and houses and careers, and tons of money. I always think A Woman of Substance is still her best work.

I found that it was slow getting started but about half way through it started to get my attention. You see the Harte family again, and I always enjoy reading about them. I didn't find it as great as most of her books but it was still good.