Lady Charlotte Edmonds: Beautiful, wealthy, and sheltered, Charlotte feels suffocated by the strictures of upper-crust society. She longs to see the world beyond The Manor, to seek out high adventure. And most of all, romance.
Janie Seward: Fiery, hardworking, and clever, Janie knows she can be more than just a kitchen maid. But she isn't sure she possesses the courage -- or the means -- to break free and follow her passions.
Both Charlotte and Janie are ready for change. As their paths overlap in the gilded hallways and dark corridors of The Manor, rules are broken and secrets are revealed. Secrets that will alter the course of their lives. . . forever.
When I first saw this cover I immediately thought Downton Abbey. In my opinion she looks just like Sybil Crawley. That's even the style of dress she wore!
I got even more excited when I read the inside flap. I absolutely love Downton Abbey and I thought another "upstairs, downstairs" drama sounded fun.
First, let's go over what I enjoyed about this book.
I adored the setting of this book. It took me right back to Downton Abbey. I could really imagine the world where Charlotte and Janie lived. I think all of the descriptions were pretty well done. I also liked how the author really tried to get across the differences in the life styles of those who were upstairs and downstairs. My favorite part of it all was that Charlotte was a writer. I thought that was very interesting. The ending was decent and did mark a turning point in the book as well. This was a very clean romance for which I was very, very thankful for. In that way it was refreshing.
Now, what I didn't like.
Where do I even begin?!
I felt that the whole romance thing was incredibly rushed and unnatural. One minute Charlotte doesn't even notice him and all of a sudden he is the love of her life! One of her love interests was rather confusing. You could never tell who he truly loved because he was flirting with everyone pretty seriously. Fran was a rather annoying friend. I didn't get why Charlotte hung around her in the first place if she couldn't stand her! Charlotte was a very aggravating character. She was over dramatic and didn't even try to be compliant. She didn't seem to care that she was endangering Janie's job every time she talked to her. All she seemed to care about was herself. Janie was way too serious, but still a better character than Charlotte. Charlotte's mother was unnecessarily strict and seemed to have all of these ridiculous rules just for the sake of creating more tension in the plot. The way she tried to keep Aunt Beatrice from Charlotte seemed more strange than mysterious. That leads us to another point. Aunt Beatrice. I feel like we saw so little of her we weren't intrigued by her enough. Instead we had to sit through Charlotte dreaming about Lawrence again. You know how I said that this book seemed similar to Downton Abbey? Well, this book was similar in the worst ways. There are a few annoying times in Downton Abbey where someone upstairs will fall in love with someone downstairs or vice versa. This book copied just that but did it very badly. They continued this in making Charlotte overly rebellious, having the servants dance, having some of the same settings, and forcing Charlotte to get married. I did say above that I thought the ending was decent. Yes, and that was a decent plot twist, but it was still too anti-climatic. It seemed a bit too unrealistic. Maybe I would have enjoyed the ending if the book would have focused on the mystery more.
All in all, I give this book 3.25 stars.
Unless you are a die-hard fan of romance novels and Downton Abbey, I would not recommend this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment