Lady Almina E A Verdadeira Downton Abbey (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
It was a nicely written tour of a time and a place that has been written about so cleverly by others (like Nancy Mitford) but clever covers up a lot of facts. This book actually tells us what was happening with the English upper crust thru much of the pre-WWII United Kingdom.Very little about what went on downstairs. Just lists of this stable boy who was killed in WWI and that upstairs maid who's ganddaughter came to work for the firm.All in all, a pleasure. I liked this book well enough, though I did have a few issues. First, she repeatedly describes photographs of a particular person, moment and so forth, yet there is no copy of it in the book. The reason that bugs me, there's a handful of sections devoted to photos, why not put these in there too? Second, you can tell there is some sort of issue being glossed over at some points. There are vague references to Almina's days after the death of her first husband, very doom and gloom sounding, but there aren't any details involved anywhere following. Which lead to a search on my own for what had happened that we were skipping around on. Better to have left those chunks out or not dropped those bread crumbs in there in a way that would make a reader curious. Overall it was an interesting read, not page turning, stay up all night, type of read, but good. It didn't bore me with things that had no place and told the story in a way that didn't make me want to take a nap. I may even pick up the next book.
What do You think about Lady Almina E A Verdadeira Downton Abbey (2011)?
Did not really like, this was quite slow and so much detail about the family...I lost interest.
—Maryannh
Choppy not well written but has interesting points if you watch Downton Abby.
—audrey2303
So interesting to read about the lives of the "real" downtown abbey family!
—email0016
Learned a lot about WWI, Egypt and the real Downton Abbey.
—cloemoe
A fascinating story, even though it bogged down a bit.
—drew
