The Secret Countess – Eva Ibbotson

First published as A Countess Below Stairs

I give this book 5 stars out of 5 possible.

I read this book in Swedish not too long ago. You can find my Swedish review here.

Anna and her family escapes from the Russian revolution and comes to England. On the way the nanny disappears with all their jewellery. In England, Anna decides to work and she comes to work at Westerholmes as a maid.

I really love this book! I liked it in Swedish as well, but the language was a bit weird because the translation wasn’t that great and the word-order were quite bad sometimes but I didn’t think too much about it. It’s always nice to read a book in the original language because you always get to know the author a bit and how the author writes. Nothing disappears in a translation. For example; the word “seldom” appeared a few times in this book. From my experience “seldom” isn’t that often used in the books I’ve read in English and “seldom” isn’t really the same in Swedish. There is a word that means the same, but it’s not used the same in the two languages. From what I’ve noticed from this book, Eva Ibbotson changes her language depending on when the story is placed. The Secret Countess is places in the beginning of the 20th century and I think Eva Ibbotson did a great job writing this book. I haven’t read any of her other books in English, but I’ll definitely do that.

I highly recommend this book!