The Affairs of Ashmore Castle
England, 1903. Harrod-Eagles’ second novel in the Ashmore Castle series has all the ingredients an assiduous follower of Downton Abbey could wish for: a dowager with her nose seriously out of joint, gossiping servants jostling for position in the below-stairs hierarchy, burgeoning romance across the class divide, and some rather splendid clothes, even if Ashmore Castle itself has seen better days. The dramatis personae that prefaces the novel itself is essential, especially in keeping track of all the servants, for like any major Edwardian establishment, this one needs a staff to keep it going that outnumbers the resident family. Giles, Lord Stainton, has married money. His young wife loves him, but his heart yearns for another woman and for the freedom to pursue his other passion, Egyptology. Amiable Uncle Sebastian has an unconventional marriage project of his own. The Countess Stainton’s best friend has married an older man, an industrialist and so not quite acceptable amongst old money—though King Edward is quite happy to borrow from him. In the servants’ hall old allegiances and rivalries play out in a suicide and what looks as though it may be a murder, whilst on a cottage on the estate dwells the handsome Axe Brandom, who is shaping up to be the Ted Burgess of the situation.
Harrod-Eagles writes engagingly of a world in which if a lady does not ride side-saddle, she is a source of scandal; speech and manners are pitch-perfect. The novel is not quite stand-alone. Reading it is a little like watching a television series; plot strands are not so much resolved as left to be tied up in a future novel.
