"A Countess Below Stairs" by Eva Ibbotson
I got this book by mistake, actually. I've been reading a lot of biographies of folks during WWII, and while looking for a certain book from a countess, who was in on a couple assassination attempts of Hitler, this title got selected also. When it arrived from the library I realized it was a romance, and put it back on the "return" pile in the living room.
Well, the other night, 3am and I couldn't sleep, I didn't want to read anything about war and death, so that left out all the other library books. This one was on top of the pile, so I gave it a try.
It was OK. Rather iffy premise, and you could see the end result coming from about 20 chapters away, plus the "villains" are rather melodramatic vaudeville villains... why did they have to be *so* bad? It just makes it all seem hokey. Just make them "bad enough". You don't have to overdo it and turn one woman into Cruella De Ville Meets Lucretia just to get rid of her. And the ending was a bit too hackneyed. I was rolling my eyes so hard I'm surprised they didn't roll out.
It did finally send me to sleep, though, so I guess it did one thing well!
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