Angel (by Barbara Taylor Bradford)

(Amazon UK link)

I'm having rather mixed feelings about Barbara Taylor Bradford's novels. I quite enjoyed the first two I read, but was much less impressed by the next ones. I thought I'd try one more.

'Angel' is the story of four high-powered friends. It's an exciting book, which has some surprises and a shocking climax, before a tidy, and happy ending. I like happy endings, so it's just as well that it did end that way.

Unfortunately there is rather a lot of padding in this book, with (in my view) far too much detail about the past lives of all the characters. I found this very boring and almost entirely unnecessary. I don't know if this was the sequel to another book or if it's supposed to stand alone. Either way, the flashbacks and lengthy detail didn't work.

On the other hand, I thought the characters were fairly well drawn and sympathetic. That's despite their being rich and famous, which would normally make them hard for me to relate to.

I don't know that I'd read this again, but I quite enjoyed it on the whole. I am still not sure whether or not I'll read any more by this author!

Not regularly in print, other than for the Kindle. But 'Angel' seems to be widely available second-hand, usually inexpensively.