WHEN it comes to family sagas, Barbara Taylor Bradford is a writer of substance. Not that her writing is flawless. Her characters tend to be po-faced and pedantic, her dialogue is utterly unrealistic and her sex scenes make you want to run away and hide in a cupboard with embarrassment, but - and this is an important but - she knows how to tell a tale.

This particular tale is the fourth, eagerly-awaited chapter in the life of the Harte family, descendants of the indomitable matriarch and the original Woman of Substance, Emma Harte.

Following the adventures of her many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their unnervingly incestuous liaisons with the O'Neills, Kallinskis and each other, this is a somewhat unwieldy saga that, thankfully, comes with a handy who's who at the front of the book.

The sheer number of characters occasionally shoves a spanner in the plot. On one notable occasion when a crucial whodunit was finally revealed, I was left completely nonplussed because I had no idea who the character was.

But, as a rule, the wealth of characters adds to the pace and distracts from the wafer-thin plot.

Barbara Taylor Bradford, a Leeds lass now living in New York, has written better, but not recently. Devotees of Emma Harte will lap it up - especially as the author uses flashback to bring her favourite heroine back from the dead.

Updated: 09:08 Wednesday, February 18, 2004