book recommendation - masters and servants

[onlydizzier]

Can anyone recommend a book that is similar in feel to Downton Abbey or Gosford Park, in that it has an upstairs/downstairs dynamic? I'd like for the characters on both sides of the green baize door to be fully realized, with their own problems and stories. I've read THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON, so anything beyond that would be appreciated.

Thanks!

ETA: This doesn't necessarily have to be historical fiction, though that was my first thought. Something along the same lines in mystery, fantasy, or any other genre would be fine.

Comments

[libskrat]

Perhaps Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint and The Privilege of the Sword, would scratch that itch a little?

[themis]

You might try Afterimage (Helen Humphreys), Fingersmith (Sarah Waters), Year of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks), or Master Georgie (Beryl Bainbridge). None of these are perfect fits, unfortunately.

I think Native Son has some of this dynamic, too - but I haven't read it yet. (I think Bigger Thomas is like a chauffeur or something.) Probably not very Downton Abbey in feeling though. I also haven't read The Mistress of Nothing, but I think it might work?

[kathmandu]

I'm going to suggest The Interior Life, by Katherine Blake. It concerns a woman in our world who begins having astonishingly vivid visions from the points of view of an aristocratic lady and her chief serving maid in a fantasy world. Our heroine is herself a housewife in the early 1990s; she gets to follow along with the serving-maid for homemaking and household organization (in wartime!) in a more medieval environment, and follow along with the lady for heroic rescues and military alliances above stairs. It has very nice parallels between all three storylines. Out of print but worth looking for.