Blog Tour (Review): Ravenscliffe by Jane Sanderson

Title: Ravenscliffe: A Novel (Eve Williams #2)
Author: Jane Sanderson
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Acquired Via: TLC Book Tours
For fans of Downton Abbey . . . The peaceful beauty of the English countryside belies the turmoil of forbidden love and the apprehension of a changing world for the families of Netherwood Yorkshire, 1904. On Netherwood Common, Russian émigré Anna Rabinovich shows her dear friend Eve Williams a gracious Victorian villa—Ravenscliffe—the house Anna wants them to live in. There’s a garden and a yard and room enough for their children to play and grow.

Something about the house speaks to Anna, and you should listen to a house, she believes…Ravenscliffe holds the promise of happiness.

Across the square, Clarissa and her husband, the Earl of Netherwood, are preparing for King Edward’s visit. Clarissa is determined to have everything in top shape at Netherwood Hall—in spite of the indolent heir to the estate, Tobias, and his American bride—and much of it depends on the work going on downstairs as the loyal servants strive to preserve the noble family’s dignity and reputation.

As Anna restores Ravenscliffe to its full grandeur, she strikes up a relationship with hardworking Amos Sykes—who proposed to Eve just one year ago.

But when Eve’s long-lost brother Silas turns up in their close-knit mining community, cracks begin to appear in even the strongest friendships.

As change comes to the small town and society at large, the residents of Netherwood must find their footing or lose their place altogether.

My Review

You can read my review of Netherwood (Eve Williams #1) HERE.

Being as I review a diverse assortment of genres, I feel extremely lucky to have landed three fantastic historical fiction novels in such a short period of time. Ravenscliffe was just as well-written as it's predecessor, Netherwood, but I enjoyed Ravenscliffe so much more. I have also come to the conclusion that the series being titled Eve Williams is a bit misleading, as the story encompassing quite a few people living at Netherwood. There are plenty of characters to love, root for, and even hate, which makes for an interesting story.

Blog Tour (Review): Netherwood by Jane Sanderson

Title: Netherwood (Eve Williams #1)
Author: Jane Sanderson
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Release Date: October 30, 2012
Acquired Via: TLC Book Tours
Two remarkably different worlds—one of wealth and privilege, the other of poverty and desperation—are about to collide in one shattering moment in this mesmerizing tale of high drama, forbidden love, and families fighting to hold on to what they have

Upstairs: Lord Netherwood, a coal baron, earns his considerable wealth from the three mines he owns. Supplying a bustling industrial empire with the highest-quality coal keeps his coffers filled—money he needs to run his splendid estate, Netherwood Hall, and to dress his wife and daughters in the latest fashions. And keeping his heir, the charming but feckless Tobias, out of trouble, doesn’t come cheap.

Downstairs: Eve Williams, the wife of one of Lord Netherwood’s most stalwart employees, cleverly manages her family’s well-being on the low wages her hardworking husband earns in the mines. But when her ordered life amid the terraced rows of miners’ houses is brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve must look to her own self-sufficiency and talent to provide for her three young children.

And soon the divide between “upstairs” and “downstairs” is about to close . . . and neither world will ever be the same.

My Review

When I was a teenager, I stumbled across Marion Chesney's Poor Relations series, and I devoured them. I've gone back to reread them several times over the years, and I've never been able to find a series that gave me quite the same enjoyment. That is, until I found Netherwood by Jane Sanderson. It does not have the same lightness and swoony romance as the aforementioned Victorian-based novels, but it was an absolute pleasure to read.