IT goes right against the grain to knock a fellow Tyke - not to mention a fellow Leeds lass - but sometimes needs must.

When we were about 12, my pals and I devoured Barbara Taylor Bradford's novels about gung-ho gals who made their fortune and got their man (or several men) like they were the last liquorice torpedoes on the planet.

For us, they seemed like a perfectly natural progression from the girls' boarding school books we had previously adored; they were, if you like, Mallory Towers with a bit of slap and tickle.

But that was a long time ago and times have changed - unless of course you are Barbara Taylor Bradford.

She, it seems, is still writing for women who refuse to put aside childish things. In her latest offering, Three Weeks In Paris, her relentlessly two-dimensional characters come in four bland flavours: Alexandra Gordon, a beautiful auburn-haired New York set designer looking for love; Kay Lennox, a beautiful flame-haired Scottish fashion designer looking for love; Jessica Pierce, a beautiful blonde-haired Californian interior designer looking for love; and Maria Franconi, a beautiful raven-haired Italian textile designer looking for love.

And what do they all have in common (apart from talking ever-so correctly and ever-so politely, like four modern day Celia Johnson clones)?

They all went to the Anya Sedgwick School of Decorative Arts in Paris of course, and now they are heading back for a class reunion. Hurrah!

Forget three weeks, I can sum up my opinion of BTB's latest borebuster in three words: don't read it.

Updated: 09:37 Wednesday, April 17, 2002