Described as gripping story of ‘courage, love and passion, treachey and triumph’, Breaking The Rules follows a young woman who flees the English countryside for a new life in New York. Moving from New York to the chic fashion capitals of London and Paris, to the exotic locations of Istanbul and Hong Kong, this new tale from a renowned storyteller is a genuine page-turner

For more exclusive interviews with Barbara Taylor Bradford check out her channel here on t5m.

‘Breaking The Rules’ introduces M, a beautiful woman who would do anything to protect the ones she loves.  A terrible experience at her countryside home forces her to flee to New York in the hope of a new beginning.  In New York, her life is turned upside down as she becomes a top model and muse for French designer Jean-Louis Tremont. It’s love at first sight when M meets dashing actor Larry Vaughan. They become the most talked about couple on the international scene, appearing on the front cover of every celebrity magazine.

With a successful career and a perfect marriage, M truly believes she has put her past to rest. But things take a dramatic turn when a dark figure from her past, someone who she thought she’d never see again, is back and determined to shatter M’s world forever.

Don’t miss out!

Barbara was born in Yorkshire, and is returning home in September to celebrate 30 years since her debut best selling novle, Woman of Substance which kick started as career as one of the world’s best loved novelists.

She is also visiting Ashdell prep school and Meadowhall shopping centre to talk about her life and career, and to sign copies of her latest novel, Breaking the Rules.

Taylor Bradford’s visit to Ashdell coincides with the launch of the school’s first-ever literary festival and she has agreed to perform the official opening. Barbara said “I’m really excited about my trip to Yorkshire. I always get such a warm welcome.”

To learn more about Barbara’s fascinating career as a novelist, journalist and charity patron watch t5m’s exclusive interview with the best selling writer here.

What’s your favourite Barbara Taylor Bradford Novel?

“It is the thirty-year anniversary of A Woman of Substance, would you believe? We’re releasing a special commemoration issue, and it means that I shall be in the UK to promote it. There is always so much to be done, this job is about so much more than writing a book, and it always has been” says Barbara, and this combined with the release of her 25th novel in August (September in the UK) ‘Break The Rules’ makes 2009 an incredibly busy year for the Yorkshire born writer– turned  New Yorker.

“Ah yes, the current novel! Well, it involves the Harte family, of course, and it sees the return of an old enemy and nemesis, intent on destroying some of the women. I shall tease you – ‘When those you love are threatened, you’ll do anything to protect them, even break the rules’”, Barbara explains of her forthcoming novel. Theres little doubt that Break The Rules will also enjoy the same success and reception of her most recent novel, Being Elizabeth, but Barbara explains that it isn’t the praise which motivates her, “I just adore writing, I love reading and books and literature. But I do adore writing the most. I may complain about it swallowing my time, but I couldn’t do anything else.”

Her previous novel, Being Elizabeth was based on the life of Elizabeth I, Barbara’s favourite monarch from her favourite period “I find the Tudor’s fascinating, I love that period. I am from Yorkshire so I grew up with that history, they were very much a Yorkshire family, you know. I feel inspired by them”.

However, translating the life of a female monarch in the 16th century into the modern day has its challenges “I did an awful lot of research, I read biographies and historians’ books. It was incredibly difficult, and a very serious project. For example Elizabeth suffered from small pox – how do I make that relevant to modern day? To now? I struggled, instead my character had pneumonia”.

Barbara’s love of history is clear – both 2006’s The Ravenscar Dynasty and 2007’s The Heir mirror the lives of the Plantagenet kings Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, and although she admits to being a huge fan of history, she seems to prefer writing about novels set in the present day, perhaps why she is so excited about Break The Rules, “It was nice to write about something happening today. Of course all novels present their own challenges and difficulties, but writing about the here and now takes away some of the stress”.

However, whilst a reader acquainted with the biographies of 16th century monarchs would perhaps notice the similarities with Barbara’s protagonists, does Barbara ever worry about her references being missed? “How funny you would ask that!” her voice chimes, “When the paperback of Being Elizabeth was released in March, the publishers asked me to include some notes on the historical context of the novel. I wish I could have done it in the hardback – I would hate to think people didn’t get it”.

“Elizabeth was a remarkable woman, coming to the throne at the age of 25, surrounded by men who didn’t take her seriously. And look at how history has remembered her? Incredible, inspiring. I wanted to put her story into the modern context, to celebrate it, I suppose”.

I suggest that maybe Barbara herself relates to the more resilient and strong qualities of her chosen Queen, herself overcoming the odds to an extent, etching out her career at the Yorkshire Evening Post before moving to Fleet street in the male-dominated industry.

“Oh yes, I am a very strong woman” she asserts with a laugh, “I enjoy the company of hardworking, capable and independent women. I know that I can rely on myself and I like to explore that with my characters. I wouldn’t flatter myself to think I am like Elizabeth Tudor, but I admire her.”

While it may be her novels that have bought her fame and fortune, it is in print journalism that she honed her craft, “I may write novels, but I will always be a journalist. I consider myself a journalist – I did it all, from crime to showbiz and fashion.” And she is keen not to forget her roots, having recently lent her support to the strikes on the Yorkshire Evening Post against redundancies, “I worry for the future of print journalism. Everywhere, both at home and in the States, newspapers are closing every day. When I heard that the paper (Yorkshire Evening Post) faced similar difficulties, I had to send them a letter of support. The next thing I heard they had my face on placards, chanting ‘Thank you Barbara’, which I thought was rather fun”.

“I just love reading the paper, holding the paper. I can’t abide reading news online, even though I imagine that is where it’s headed. The same with books, nothing is quite as satisfying as reading a book. Oh heavens! Imagine if the bookstore is the next to go! I spend all my down time in book shops, my husband jokes that we spend all of our holidays buying books. I think we will see a great change in the written word over the next few years, and I think it will be a shame”.

I wonder what a woman, who spends her time reading for research and writing novels for work, reads in her spare time? Surely the last thing any novelists want is to read in their ‘off time’. “Oh heavens no! I adore reading. I love the classics, especially the Brontes – I always thought Jane Eyre was a very modern woman. A woman before her time, independent and resilient. That said, I enjoy P.D James, I think he’s wonderful. I do love a thriller. Oh, and Ruth Rendell…and Penny Vincenzi! She writes marvelous novels, very long and engrossing”.  She stops herself from listing every author she has ever read, saying “We’ll be here all day! Is that enough?”

To close, I ask Barbara how she would define her style and voice, “I write about women that are not wimps. Women that get on with it”. Which, perhaps, most aptly sums up her attitude to her work and life.

Barbara describes the leading character of her novel, Emma Harte, as, ‘a woman who was strong, independent, driven, ambitious, courageous – willing to go out and put herself on the line and do something. I created a women who wanted to conquer the world’.

The lead character in her book captivated the world and is undoubtedly the reason why even today A Woman of Substance ranks as one of the best selling books of all time, worldwide.

Perhaps there is a little bit of Barbara in Emma, as when asked about the effect the book had, Barbara doesn’t mince her words. ‘What I did was create a new kind of fictional heroine or protagonist. Nobody had done it before and I’ve had many imitators.’

Barbara recounts stories of her first published piece at the tender age of ten, sighting her sights high in the world of journalism and her life-long burning desire to write fiction. ‘There was a moment in the ’70s when I said “If I don’t write a novel, or attempt it, and finish a novel I might feel disappointed and frustrated when I’m older. I must try and do it now”‘.

But to pick up a loved novel after years of absence is something else. It is familiar yet unsettling, rooted in its era yet strangely full of modern resonances. Take The Go Between by L.P Hartley, a book that famously explores how the passage of time can twist and shape a memory. To a fourteen year old reader hooked on the illicit affair at the novel’s centre – this is a book about sex. A girl or boy at that age would find it tapped into the preoccupations of their world at that time: secrecy, romance and, above all, sexual awakening. The heroine’s decision to marry the wealthy suitor she didn’t love would seem to a young girl a cruel injustice… And in many ways to the woman she becomes twenty years later, it still does. And yet perhaps the cynic in her would see that after all the bonking in the woodshed started to dwindle it might never have worked – a modern Marian couldn’t possibly manage without a nanny and three holidays a year. Over the passage of life The Go Between becomes a darker book about class and sexual manipulation and inevitably the loss of innocence.

The mature Leo Colston starts his narration of The Go Between ‘The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.’ ‘Well just the same could be said for revisiting a novel after many years. The landscape looks the same but the people are not quite as you remember them. Having said that, you might remember with a degree of separation the young person you were when you first got lost in its pages, and just for a little while, be that person again.