As the author of a historical/mystery/romance series that has won over sixty international awards in multiple categories, I’m attracted to books that cannot be pinned to one genre. I love sweeping sagas with elements of all three, perhaps because I was so immersed in classic literature as a kid and fascinated by stories of the past. I suspect I may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, I have resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting myself back there. I am, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music.
I came upon this 3-part series almost by accident and quickly gobbled it up, surprised that it is not more well known. It is a fabulous upstairs/downstairs type of saga in which both the aristocracy and the servants who wait upon them are upended by the outbreak of WW1. Excellent writing; hard to put down.
Before Downton Abbey, there was Abingdon Pryory, the elegant country home of the Grevilles - a titled English family who, along with their servants, see their world turned upside down when England goes to war - and their well-kept lawns and whirling social seasons give way to the horrors of battle leaving no one, upstairs or downstairs, untouched.
I’m a long-time lover of Christian romance, and now with over a dozen Christian historical romance books published, and a similar amount of Christian contemporary romances published or soon to be, I think I’m someone who has a true appreciation for romance that is soul-stirringly Christian, not just clean or sweet, but which contains truths that will inspire and encourage as well as entertain with swoon-worthy romance.
If you’re like me and a fan of Downton Abbey, then you’ll appreciate the well-researched Edwardian period details found in this charming story, as well as the sweet romance. Julia Foster is not your usual governess, having a remarkable backstory of her own, but the way she cares for the widowed William and his children is heart-warming and will captivate your heart.
More Than 200 5-Star Reviews on Amazon.Finalist for the ACFW Carol Award and the Gayle Wilson Award of ExcellenceWhen a crisis strikes Julia's family in India, she returns to England and takes the position at Highland Hall, a magnificent English country estate. Will she be able to find her place when a governess is neither upstairs family nor downstairs help?
Family drama, romance, and inspiration for those who love Downton Abbey and Jane Eyre. Missionary Julia Foster loves working alongside her parents, ministering and caring for young girls in India. But when the family must return to England due to…
I’m drawn to stories about human nature and the many lifestyles people choose to live. My mother often tells me I’m like my great aunt Freda, who has a love for beautiful and fantastic things. Freda was famous in my mind, and I believe I was further drawn to reading about fame because I wanted to know what that world looked like. Is too much money stressful? Are social events unwanted obligations? Are famous marriages bound to fail? This list is a glimpse into the lifestyles of the rich and famous and both the curses and blessings of their daily lives.
Kevin Kwan takes a well-educated, confident Chinese-American woman and shows us how different her partner’s culture in Singapore is when she goes home with him and his family doesn’t accept her. I love how she doesn’t give up without a fight. I also enjoyed the side story about Aster and her husband. Nick and Aster were two of my favorite characters because of the humbleness they exude.
Beyond the characters, the clothing, the homes, the cars, the parties—it all blew my mind. I felt like I was Rachel, and all of it was happening to me. As soon as I finished the first book, I devoured the other two in the series. Kevin Kwan gives details that easily pull his readers into the story, causing them to wonder what crazy thing will happen next.
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of the season.
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a…
I am fascinated by all that was happening in the world before WWII. Amidst a silent, looming economic collapse, many social norms were turned on their head, women broke out of their molds, and art, literature, technology, and music all flourished. And a heady mix of cultures blended not altogether seamlessly to influence the Roaring Twenties like no other decade before it. The juxtaposition of this exciting yet challenging tumult lures me into reading books and writing immigrant-forward stories about this period—and as an author with deep roots in the boot—I particularly enjoy doing so through an Italian lens.
Even if there’s just a hint of something Italian in a story by the sea, I’m smiling. When you first meet Miss Posie Parker in this story, she’s wearing a scent reminiscent of Parma Violet, first distilled by the second wife of Napoleon I. For the next 300 pages, I couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful Posie smells and how she must leave behind a whiff of her violet-scented perfume everywhere she goes a-sleuthing. Such a telling detail about a character and one that stayed with me as I tried in vain to solve the mystery.
Posie Parker has been called to her most baffling case yet.
Amyas Lyle, London’s top young lawyer, has been found with his head in a box of poisoned saltwater.
It’s the perfect murder. But who hated him enough to do such a thing?
Following a trail of strange notes, all of which speak of the sea, and saltwater, Posie travels from London to the seaside resort of Whitley Bay, looking for answers. But nothing can prepare her for what she finds there.
Can Posie find Amyas Lyle’s cold-blooded killer before further deaths…
I have loved visiting country houses ever since I was a child. There is something unique about the combination of art, architecture, and people. Over my lifetime, I have been privileged to visit all sorts of houses and castles. I used to work at Christie’s and during that time I visited many country houses, some of which were completely private. It was a natural progression when I moved to Goodwood and became the curator of the art collection, enjoying the house as part of my daily life. The view from my office looks out through the columns of the portico, across the park, with the sea glinting in the distance. What could be better?
This book combines superb photographs with scholarly text by two of the most eminent writers on the country house today, with additional essays by other authors who are respected experts in their fields. I like nothing more than to just open it up and flick through the pages, dipping into the text and enjoying the images. The book is a beautiful object in itself.
From The Crown to Downton Abbey, the country house speaks to our fantasies of rustic splendour, style, and escape. Featuring three hundred photos from the National Trust, this lavish book draws back the curtain on the finest and most important historic homes in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, revealing these great houses' intriguing pasts, grand interiors, and vi-brant reinventions for the enjoyment of modern-day visitors, residents, and armchair travellers. Locations include Knole, Cragside, Castle Howard, Chatsworth, Polesden Lacey, Petworth, Castle Bodiam, Blenheim, Longleat, and dozens more. Illuminating essays by country house expert Jeremy Musson, legendary British author and historian David…
I’ve
enjoyed everything by Lucy Parker, but this one was special. It takes place in a
royal household but focuses on two staff members, not the royals themselves.
So there’s a little bit of a Downton Abbey vibe there, even though it’s a modern
timeline. I love the way she writes the chaos/stoic contrast of these two wildly
different characters while somehow making their romance feel organic and
believable.
There’s a fabulous twist at the end that made my heart grow two
sizes. I can’t wait to read what she writes next.
Following Battle Royal, beloved author Lucy Parker pens another delicious romantic comedy about a fake relationship between a grumpy royal bodyguard and the charming, sunny assistant who melts his cold, hard exterior.
Petunia De Vere enjoys being the personal assistant to lovable, bumbling Johnny Marchmont. But the job has its share of challenges, including the royal's giant, intimidating bodyguard, Matthias. Pet and Matthias are polar opposites-she's spontaneous and enthusiastic, he's rigid and stoic-but she can sense there's something softer underneath that tough exterior...
For Matthias Vaughn, protecting others is the name of the game. But keeping his royal charge out…
Ever since I was a child, the rumors surrounding my grandfather’s mysterious birth and upbringing have fascinated me! Left at a police station on Christmas Eve, 1923, he grew up in a New York orphanage. When he was of age, the nuns handed him a large sum of money and told him his father was FDR and his mother was a servant of the Roosevelt’s. Was it true? Was it fiction? My family has spent collective decades combing through papers in search of answers. I finally decided to take the pieces of the story we knew and knit them together with fiction to create my first novel, A Roosevelt Smile.
Before I could write my book, I needed a more in-depth look at the world of domestic service in the early 20th century! Reading the memoirs of Margaret Powell provided a wonderful springboard for me to connect my great-grandmother/protagonist world!
Born in 1907, Margaret started work at age 13. She details the ups and downs of an Edwardian kitchen maid. From servants randomly giving birth in the closet to masters with strange obsessions, this story brings a firsthand perspective into the "downstairs world" life of domestic service.
Arriving at the great houses of 1920s London, fifteen-year-old Margaret's life in service was about to begin...
As a kitchen maid - the lowest of the low - she entered an entirely new world; one of stoves to be blacked, vegetables to be scrubbed, mistresses to be appeased, and even bootlaces to be ironed. Work started at 5.30am and went on until after dark. It was a far cry from her childhood on the beaches of Hove, where money and food were scarce, but warmth and laughter never were.
Yet from the gentleman with a penchant for stroking the housemaids'…
I’ve always been fascinated by film and television. No matter how challenging life can be at times, we're forever united by what stories captivate us on the gold and silver screens. Whatever challenges the world may throw at this type of storytelling be it a world war, the internet, Covid, or TikTok, nothing beats sitting down on your sofa to enjoy the finest entertainment the world has to offer. Critically studying our most treasured past time might sound like the best way of sucking the life out of it. But I’m here to show you how this isn't the case. Join me on a quest through the best writings that can capture your imagination.
The Television Genre Book is a smorgasbord of leading international scholars who come together to offer an accessible yet comprehensive introduction to the debates, issues, and concerns of what it is that makes unique television genres so appealing.
From the news and quiz shows to soaps and serious HBO dramas I still remember first opening this book and being enthralled by my newfound ability to look at our favourite pastime differently and critically.
Genre is central to understanding the industrial context and visual form of television. This new edition of the key textbook on television genre brings together leading international scholars to provide an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the debates, issues and concerns of the field. Structured in eleven sections, The Television Genre Book introduces the concept of 'genre' itself and how it has been understood in television studies, and then addresses the main televisual genres in turn: drama, soap opera, comedy, news, documentary, reality television, children's television, animation and popular entertainment.
This third edition is illustrated throughout with case studies of…
I’ve always loved historical romance, ever since my mother gave me my first Georgette Heyer when I was eight, and my grandmother gave me my first Barbara Cartland shortly after. The fascination has never waned, which is a good thing because I grew up to become a historical romance author myself. Since publishing my first romance in 2006, I’ve written nearly 50 books, mainly set during the Regency period (first quarter of the 19th century). I’ve always adored how a good historical romance whisks me away to a larger-than-life world replete with dashing rakes, smart-mouthed ladies, and glittering high society, not to mention witty banter, glamour, and heart-stopping romance.
This is my favorite comfort read, the perfect book for days when life has too many sharp corners. I must have read this one at least twenty times. It has all the virtues of a classic fairytale: a pure-hearted, brave heroine; an honorable, steadfast hero; and a happy ending earned through suffering and effort and against all the odds. It tells the story of Countess Anna Grazinsky, a young refugee from the Russian Revolution, who finds work as a maid at a stately home in the English countryside, where she falls in love with the gallant war hero who owns the house. But the Earl of Westholme is promised to another woman. Heartwarming, triumphantly romantic, wise, and funny, A Countess Below Stairs is one of those rare books that makes the world seem a better place.
Eva Ibbotson's charming and warm-hearted tale, A Secret Countess was originally published as A Countess Below Stairs.
Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion. The staff and the family are sure there is something not quite right about their new maid -…
Undine Spragg, the terminally unfulfilled social climber, is an avatar of the American type embodied by Trump and his ilk: ferociously hungry for status, material wealth, for the trappings of success without the enjoyment of it. The fact that the story takes place in Gilded Age New York reminds us that it was always thus. Deeply affecting.
Edith Wharton’s classic story of one woman’s quest for wealth and status after the turn of the twentieth century
Beautiful, selfish, and driven, Undine Spragg arrives in New York with all of the ambition and naiveté that her midwestern, nouveau riche upbringing afforded her. As cunning as she is lovely, Undine has but one goal in life: to ascend to the upper echelons of high society. And so with a single-minded tenacity, Undine continues to maneuver through life, finding all the while that true satisfaction remains just beyond her grasp.
Hailed by Elizabeth Hardwick as “Edith Wharton’s finest achievement,” The…
