Goodreads Monday: 11/01/2021

Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners.  All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello and happy Monday.

I have been stuck writing an assignment all day and I must admit I will be happy when this essay is done and dusted as writing about ancient Roman funeral rites is getting rather depressing.

Anyway, enough of that, it is time to choose another book off my TBR list. This week I have gone for a book that has been on my TBR list since 2015 but has just recently come back on my radar so I plan on reading it this year all being well.

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration and setting for Julian Fellowes’s Emmy Award-winning PBS show Downton Abbey, and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war.
    Much like her Masterpiece Classic counterpart, Lady Cora Crawley, Lady Almina was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Alfred de Rothschild, who married his daughter off at a young age, her dowry serving as the crucial link in the effort to preserve the Earl of Carnarvon’s ancestral home.  Throwing open the doors of Highclere Castle to tend to the wounded of World War I, Lady Almina distinguished herself as a brave and remarkable woman.
    This rich tale contrasts the splendor of Edwardian life in a great house against the backdrop of the First World War and offers an inspiring and revealing picture of the woman at the center of the history of Highclere Castle.

I read Christmas at Highclere by Lady Carnarvon just before Christmas 2020 and absolutely loved the book and really liked Lady Carnarvon’s writing style so I am excited to read this book.

Please drop me a comment if you want a chat.