Countess Below Stairs

by Eva Ibbotson

[ladygrey]

The description on goodreads was misleading, which actually worked out well. The logic of the novel made much more sense because Anna is never trying to hide that she's a Russian countess. She's trying to work despite that but not keep it a secret.

Once that was taken care of rather quickly, I found the novel to be delightful. [a:Eva Ibbotson|57462|Eva Ibbotson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360037190p2/57462.jpg]'s writing is interestingly descriptive and really fun to read. The characters are all fun and fallible and either endearing or outright horrible. The plot is perfectly obvious, but it doesn't really matter. To paraphrase [a:Robin McKinley|5339|Robin McKinley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1314406026p2/5339.jpg], if we read books to find out what happens why would we ever reread anything? Walking with the characters through the story is the fun part and I thoroughly enjoyed walking through this one. I loved being surprised and I loved when it was sweet. I love how neatly all the different tendrils came together and how the narrative changed focus from time to time so you really got to know the perspective of all the different characters.

Excellent book. I think I'd like to read [a:Eva Ibbotson|57462|Eva Ibbotson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1360037190p2/57462.jpg] again.