Customer Reviews

The Women in His Life

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This is a wonderful read, a big saga of a story which spans the years from Nazi Germany of 1939 to 1989, and features a cast of players both interesting and glamorous.

Maximilian West is the son of aristocratic, wealthy German Jewish parents, Ursula and Sigmund West, who absolutely idolise the clever, lovable little boy, and make him the centre of their universe. He is cared for by his Nanny, Teddy Stein, the educated daughter of their former friend and physician. When the Nazis begin their reign of terror in Berlin, rounding up and murdering the Jewish population, Sigmund sends Ursula, Teddy and Maxim to Paris to escape, intending to join them shortly. When he is prevented from doing so,Ursula leaves Maxim in the care of Teddy with instructions to take him to safety in England while she returns to be with her husband.The Wests had tansferred large amounts of money to their English bank so that Teddy is able to have the little boy educated properly and so that they want for nothing.After the war, they learn of the tragic deaths of the Wests in concentration camps, so Teddy continues to be Maxims' guardian until he comes of age. After finishing his education, Maxim proves to be a brilliant businessman and forges a vast empire which makes him a multi billionaire but also starts him on a rocky track with women, marrying three times and with many mistresses and love affairs. The story climaxes with the collpse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and, apart from one very short section, is a tale of wealth, glamour, beautiful people with beautiful clothes and houses. In short, it's a book to read when you want to feel surrounded by luxury and opulence....not a poor person in sight! I loved it!

Maximilian West thinks about the women in his life as he lies critically injured, his thoughts taking him back to his youth in pre-WWII Germany and England, then on to his life as an adult in Europe. More of a fictional history of Mr. West than a study of the main women in his life, it's still a fairly consistently entertaining novel, worth the effort to read.

However, for me at least, for a book about a business tycoon it was awfully thin on the business side, the wheeling and dealing, hostile takeovers, buyouts, tender offers, boardroom antics, politicians bribed and competitors beaten, and awfully thick on who was wearing what type of designer dress and what style someone's 5th Avenue apartment was decorated in. But maybe that's a bit of a mismatch between the book's target audience and me. You be the judge.

It is difficult for an author to sustain a string of block busters in a new direction. Barbara Taylor Bradford's THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE is one of her better efforts, but the story of Maximilian West and the women who have loved and protected him tells more about Max than these strong women.

The story spans the years from the rise of Nazi Germany to the fall of the Berlin Wall and is interesting for a historical perspective.

A late afternoon read.

Nash Black, author of Indie finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

This book couldn't hold my interest. I didn't like the way the author went back in time and bounced around. It got good towards the end. Too much of the book dealt with his childhood which was not relevant to the story of his adult years and his women.

Women of Substance was one of my all-time favorites.And Barbara Taylor Bradford followed that one with a number of books that, if not earth shattering "mind grabbers", were eminently readable. But in the last few months I have read several Bradfords that did not even begin to capture my interest. It is hard to believe that these books came from the same author. I have just finished The Women in His Life and was delighted to find a book that is right up there with Woman of Substance. You could almost tell from the first page that this was written by "the first Mrs. Bradford"! Wish the author would slow down, be less prolific, and give us more of what we know she can do.