Release Date: May 10, 1981
Pages: 344
Rating: 💜💜💜💜
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository
St Petersburg, 1917: Anna's world is under threat. The 18-year-old countess has lived in luxury but now her life is in danger...
London, 1919: Now penniless, Anna is working as a servant for the aristocratic Westerholmes. But as she falls for the young earl her secret becomes harder and harder to keep...
This book completed the booktube-a-thon challenge of read a book with a person on the cover.
Also this book was original titled A Countess Below Stairs, in case that caused any confusion.
I loved this story so much; historical fiction with an adorable romance is my ultimate favourite type of book, so this was perfect for me. I've also read all of Eva Ibbotson's middle grad novels so I knew I would enjoy this book going into it.
The Secret Countess is about a Russian countess, Anna, who has to keep her identity a secret as she works as a maid. I loved seeing these two worlds colliding; Russian countess-ship and English working class. It was interesting to see her ideas of hygiene and cleaning, and how they compared to English standards, because in general she was much more picky than the English (yep, we're all filthy pigs in England).
Anna was the most innocent character that I've ever seen but she didn't become annoying. She had all the makings of being a "Mary-Sue" but somehow she managed to avoid that trope completely. Her interest in learning was inspiring really, and I'm surprised that no one was impressed that she literally memorises an entire book! One thing I loved about Anna was that she wasn't beautiful, but she was pretty. Even then people couldn't tell what was pretty about her, she just had this aura around her. It was nice to see a character who wasn't perfect in every way, which seems to becoming rarer with ever book published.
I also loved Rupert, the main male character in this book, because he was an absolute sweetheart. I must admit, when I first heard his name I laughed a little bit because that name always reminds me of Rupert the Bear. However I soon fell in love him and he has definitely become a strong contender on my list of fictional crushes.
The funny thing about The Secret Countess is that whilst reading there is no clear villain. There are good characters who I rooted for but then there are several people who I ended up hating, even if I liked them at first. It was this blurriness between good and bad that made the book so compelling because it made all the characters seem real. There was no one in this book who was 100% perfect but you were able to root for people because they had other redeeming qualities.
My only problem with this book was how many commas were used. I've always loved Eva Ibbotson's writing style but in this book it felt like her computer had broken, causing commas to explode everywhere. There were several paragraphs where I literally had to read it aloud to make sense of what was being said. It was lovely to have such and immersive and descriptive book but I would have preferred it if there weren't 12 commas in one sentence.
Overall I loved this book. It was a beautiful historical romance set within a culture I know very little about. As soon as I finished reading it I began looking for more Russian-based historical fiction because this story was so compelling. I would recommend this to people who love historical fiction, or people who want a more subtle romance story.
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