Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey: Fiona, The Countess of Carnarvon

"Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey, a transporting companion piece to the New York Times bestseller Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, tells the story of Catherine Wendell, the beautiful and spirited American who married Lady Almina's son, the man who would become the 6th Earl of Carnarvon.  The couple presided over Highclere Castle, the grand estate that serves as the setting for the hit PBS show Downton Abbey.  Following the First World War, many of the great houses of England faded as their owners' fortunes declined in the new political and social world of the 1920s and 1930s.  As war loomed, Highclere's survival as the family home of the Carnarvons was again in the balance--as was peace between the nations of Europe.

"Using copious materials--including diaries and scrapbooks--from the castle's archives, the current Countess of Carnarvon brings alive a very modern story in a beautiful and fabled setting, paying particular attention to the staff who provide Highclere Castle with continuity between generations."

This book is a semi-sequel to Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, which I did enjoy -- especially for a work of non-fiction.  When I found out that there was another book revolving around the lives of the very interesting Highclere and the ever-fascinating Carnarvons, I began looking forward to picking it up.  This book was written with a similar ease and wealth of knowledge to the first, and I found this rather impressive.  I can only imagine the countless hours of research, interviews, and combing through records that it took to write this book.  My biggest feedback on this is that it moved in reverse flow from the first one:  While the other book was slow to start, it began picking up its pace and I ended up finishing it quite quickly; this book began very quickly and interestingly (perhaps because it essentially began right where the other finished), but was dramatically and noticeably slowed down when the Second World War began in earnest.  Personally, I feel like this happened for me because I am not a huge fan of war accounts.  I can manage snippets of personal histories and battles, but as soon as an author begins talking of strategy, battalion movements, and tactics...I have been lost.  My eyes begin to glaze over and I feel as if I've been thrust back into high school history class all over again.  The World Wars have always been the points at which I fumble in my passion for European (especially British) history (and I believe this is due in large part to the WAY in which it has been taught in American institutions over the decades -- very dry, date- and name-oriented, rather than broader-picture).  I feel like the second half of the book -- while it did in a very broad sense pertain to the Carnarvons -- certainly strayed from the aim of the rest of the book.  Lady Catherine and her family were mentioned more sporadically rather than as the main subjects.  I think the latter sections of the book would have benefitted from some more tying-in of various events directly to their lives.  While this happened now and then, I don't think it was enough for someone (like myself) who reads a book like this for the biographical aspect, and not as a history of a war.

Overall, however, I quite liked it.  I loved the pictures that were thrown in; they really helped breathe life into the names and personalities contained in the accounts.  The stories were told with a certain amount of finesse that I almost felt at times as if I were reading fiction instead of biographical information.  As a sequel to the other book by the current Countess of Carnarvon -- the wife of Lady Catherine's grandson -- I think this is a great companion work and will surely be fascinating to anyone who loves Downton Abbey.  It's wonderful to see echoes of stories and characters in the lives of the people who really lived at Highclere.