Love is in the air....

Hmmm... blogger and flickr aren't playing well at the moment, so a picture will come at some later point... update 2/13 Finally! Huzzah! Pictures!

A Countess Below Stairs Eva Ibbotson

Anna is a countess who has been rendered penniless through the Russian Revolution. Living in London with her former governess she knows she must find work and ends up as a housemaid in the old-money-but-lost-splendor manor of Mersham. She works hard and tries to keep her blue blood a secret.

Rupert is the newest Earl of Westerholme. He never wanted to return to Mersham, it was supposed to go to his older brother, but George lies buried in Flanders field and Rupert knows George would want the family to hang onto the estate. But how to handle the crippling debt? Enter Muriel, his noveau riche heiress fiancee. The Earl needs her money, she wants his aristocratic title. Too bad she’s a nightmare.

Rupert and Anna soon fall in scandalous love, but it’s never to be, for she’s a poor servant and he’s an engaged Earl. But…

Oh how I loved this. It’s silly. Anna is ever so perfectly good (seriously, she makes Nancy Drew look nasty!) and Muriel is ever so evily bad. All the characters are flat and the plot is predictable and the end is unbelievably nice and tidy and perfect. But, I couldn’t put it down, how was it all going to play out? How was Rupert going to discover Anna’s true identity? Would it all come crumbling down? You knew how it was going to end, but how was Ibbotson going to get you there? It was oh so delicious!