Fans of “Downton Abbey” Should Read These 14 Books

The Magnolia Palace

Fiona Davis

Eight months since losing her mother in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1919, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter’s life has completely fallen apart. For the past six years, under the moniker Angelica, Lillian was one of the most sought-after artists’ models in New York City, with statues based on her figure gracing landmarks from the Plaza Hotel to the Brooklyn Bridge. But with her mother gone, a grieving Lillian is rudderless and desperate—the work has dried up and a looming scandal has left her entirely without a safe haven.

Release Date: January 25, 2022

Our Kind of People

Carol Wallace

Helen Wilcox has one desire: to successfully launch her daughters into society. From the upper crust herself, Helen’s unconventional–if happy–marriage has made the girls’ social position precarious. Then her husband gambles the family fortunes on an elevated railroad that he claims will transform the face of the city and the way the people of New York live, but will it ruin the Wilcoxes first? As daughters Jemima and Alice navigate the rise and fall of their family–each is forced to re-examine who she is, and even who she is meant to love.

Release Date: January 11, 2022

The Heiress Gets a Duke

Harper St. George

American heiress August Crenshaw has aspirations. But unlike her peers, it isn’t some stuffy British Lord she wants wrapped around her finger–it’s Crenshaw Iron Works, the family business. When it’s clear that August’s outrageously progressive ways render her unsuitable for a respectable match, her parents offer up her younger sister to the highest entitled bidder instead. This simply will not do. August refuses to leave her sister to the mercy of a loveless marriage.

Release Date: January 26, 2021

Loch Down Abbey

Beth Cowan-Erskine

It’s the 1930s and a mysterious illness is spreading over Scotland. But the noble and ancient family of Inverkillen, residents of Loch Down Abbey, are much more concerned with dwindling toilet roll supplies and who will look after the children now that Nanny has regretfully (and most inconveniently) departed this life.

Then Lord Inverkillen, Earl and head of the family, is found dead in mysterious circumstances. The inspector declares it an accident but Mrs MacBain, the head housekeeper, isn’t so convinced.

Release Date: April 15, 2021

The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s spellbinding tale was an immediate bestseller upon publication in 1905. It tells the intriguing story of an attractive young American woman trying to balance her desire for financial security through marriage with her need for a relationship based on mutual love and respect. Betrayal, misunderstandings and missed opportunities are in store…- Just as accessible and enjoyable for today’s modern readers as it would have been when first published over a century ago, the novel is one of the great works of English and American literature and continues to be widely read throughout the world.

Release Date: January 1, 2006

Tender Is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend’s copy of Tender Is the Night, “If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God’s sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith.” Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental patient, Nicole, who becomes his wife; and the beautiful, harrowing ten-year pas de deux they act out along the border between sanity and madness.

Release Date: July 1, 1995

American Duchess

Karen Harper

On a cold November day in 1895, a carriage approaches St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Massive crowds surge forward, awaiting their glimpse of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Just 18, the beautiful bride has not only arrived late, but in tears, yet her marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough proceeds. Bullied into the wedding by her indomitable mother, Alva, Consuelo loves another. But a deal was made, trading some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things.

Release Date: February 26, 2019