Breaking the Rules by Barbara Taylor Bradford is a suspense-filled story that departs from the novels that feature the rich Harte family with the girls running their department store empire.
A young woman is sexually assaulted in the woods. She flees to New York City hoping to start a new life, even changing her name to ‘M’ to maintain some anonymity. After some attempts at modelling, she succeeds in getting selected as the new face of a Parisian fashion house. A photographer she befriends pulls all the right strings in order to help her gain a proper foothold in the industry.
She also chances to meet English actor, Larry Vaughan at a party. M has had a crush on Larry ever since she was a child. Even as love blossoms, she cannot rid herself of the trauma of the rape attack back in England. Things suddenly take a turn for the worse when Larry gets back into substance abuse problems, and the fashion photographer who was such a good and trusted friend to M, dies in a car accident in Europe. When she goes to Paris for a fashion show, a catwalk collapses, a bomb blows up at Harte’s department store, and an explosion at home seriously injures older sister Tessa.
M still tries to stay on course, inspite of all the difficulties. It seems that someone dangerous is out to get her. There is also a mystery about her family that is in danger from the same stalker. By now a famous model, she has to get back to London to face up to the past and a whole lot of situations keep unravelling, making for a very gripping read.
Breaking the Rules by Barbara Taylor Bradford
HarperCollins
Price Rs.299