Then you might enjoy the following titles -
Lady Almina and the real Downton Abbey : The lost legacy of Highclere Castle / Countess of Carnarvon by Lady Almina
Lady Fiona Carnarvon became the chatelaine of Highclere Castle – the setting of the hit series Downton Abbey – eight years ago. In that time she’s become fascinated by the rich history of Highclere, and by the extraordinary people who lived there over the centuries. One person particularly captured Fiona’s imagination – Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Almina was the illegitimate daughter of banking tycoon Alfred de Rothschild. She was his only daughter and he doted on her. She married the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, at 19, with an enormous dowry. At first, life at Highclere was a dizzying mix of sumptuous banquets for 500 and even the occasional royal visitor. Almina oversaw 80 members of staff – many of whom came from families who had worked at Highclere for generations. But when the First World War broke out, life at Highclere changed forever.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past …A contemporary classic, “The Remains of the Day” is Kazuo Ishiguro’s beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House, of lost causes and lost love. This title is the winner of the Booker Prize.
Netherwood : The Hoyland family has its secrets. Their employees know them all by Jane Sanderson
Eve Williams is about to discover just how the other half really live…Yorkshire, 1904: Above stairs Lord Hoyland keeps his considerable fortune ticking over with the profits from his three coal mines in the vicinity. It’s just as well the coal is of the highest quality as the upkeep of Netherwood Hall, his splendid estate on the outskirts of town, doesn’t come cheap. And that’s not to mention the cost of keeping his wife and daughters in the latest fashions– and keeping the heir to the Hoyland wealth, the charming but feckless Tobias, out of trouble. Below stairs: Eve Williams, is the wife of one of Lord Hoyland’s most stalwart employees. When her ordered existence amid the terraced rows of the miners’ houses is brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve must look to her own self-sufficiency, and talent, to provide for her three young children. And it’s then that ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ collide in truly dramatic fashion…
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his. Prepare yourself. From this wonderful writer who continues to astonish us, now comes a chilling ghost story.
The World of Downton Abbey by Jessica Fellowes
The official companion to series one and two. Downton Abbey portrays a world of elegance and decadence, a world of duty and obedience and a world of romance and rivalry: this companion book, full of rich historical detail, takes fans deeper into that period than ever before.
The monster showed up after midnight, as they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatment, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…
.
