A Woman of Substance

Nicky Wells, a TV journalist who is renowned for her hard-hitting reports from the worlds most dangerous spots, is haunted by the disappearance of her fiancé.

The life of Emma Harte, from kitchen maid at the beginning of the 20th-century, to respected businesswoman and grandmother in the 1980s. From humble beginnings, Emma Harte starts her business with a small shop, but over the next twenty years, she expands her stores and invests in the growing textile industry in Leeds.

Melissa Gilbert stars as Meredith. A sad and lonely writer returning to her home town in England for the first time since she was about 6 or 7 years old, after being adopted and raised in America. While there she decides to look for her mother's grave, and finds out her memories are not exactly what she thought they were, her mother is alive. She then sets out to find her mother and some answers and finds both. She also falls in love, of course, but has a problem with long term commitments...

To Be the Best is a two-part 1991 British television serial, based on Barbara Taylor Bradford's 1988 novel of the same name, a follow-up to A Woman of Substance (1984) and Hold the Dream (1987). It stars Lindsay Wagner as Paula O'Neill (née Harte), taking over the role from Deborah Kerr. Paula O'Neill feuds with her cousins as she fights to save her grandmother's business, and struggles to salvage her marriage.

A fortyish interior designer, dumped by her husband, moves across the country and finds love in another town in a relationship with a much younger man.

Vanessa Stewart is a beautiful American woman engaged to be married. Vanessa is an artist and is also a buyer for her father's company. She goes to Venice on a business trip and meets television reporter Bill Fitzgerald from Ireland. They fall madly in love in the four days they are in Venice.

Three beautiful women – grandmother, mother and daughter – struggle bravely through five eventful decades of hidden love, high drama and sudden death. From 1926 to present day, from the Yorkshire Dales to London, Paris and New York, how each woman commits an act of will that changes their life and world. Based on Barbara Taylor Bradford's 1986 novel of the same name.

Hold the Dream is a two-part 1987 television serial based on Barbara Taylor Bradford's 1985 novel of the same name, a sequel to the 1984 miniseries A Woman of Substance. Deborah Kerr reprises her role of Emma Harte, with Jenny Seagrove, who played the young Emma, taking the lead role as Paula Fairley. Paula Fairley, now head of the Harte chain of department stores, has taken on the burden of preserving Emma's legacy. However, she suffers dissent within her extended family, in particular from her devious cousin Jonathan Ainsley. In the United Kingdom, the series aired in four one-hour episodes, although it was initially created as two two-hour parts.