Ebook The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret, by Catherine Bailey
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The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret, by Catherine Bailey
Ebook The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret, by Catherine Bailey
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From Booklist
While researching a book on WWI, historian Bailey stumbled on a crackerjack real-life mystery revolving around the life and times of John Henry Montagu Manners, the ninth Duke of Rutland. A meticulous curator who organized his illustrious family’s documents and correspondence, he died in the archives suite of Belvoir Castle in 1940, refusing medical treatment until he completely expunged all records pertaining to three distinct yet interrelated periods in his life. As Bailey painstakingly unearths secret after secret in order to deduce what really happened between the years 1894 to 1915, the ghosts of scandals past surface in full force. Populated with a bevy of real-life aristos who played by their own twisted and privileged set of rules, a searing portrait of family intrigue, dysfunction, and hubris—à la Downton Abbey—emerges. --Margaret Flanagan
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Review
“In pages more reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe than Evelyn Waugh… [Bailey] reminds us why this seemingly insignificant story bears telling.” – The New York Times Book Review“With gripping detail and graceful prose…Bailey’s work can best be described as a work of probative history written with the storytelling skills of a latter-day Agatha Christie.” – The Richmond Times-Dispatch “Populated with a bevy of real-life aristos who played by their own twisted and privileged set of rules, a searing portrait of family intrigue, dysfunction, and hubris—a la Downton Abbey—emerges.” – Booklist “Bailey is a truly dogged detective… a compelling exposé” – Kirkus Reviews “Bailey deserves commendation for her meticulous research as well as her storytelling.” – Publisher’s Weekly “Gripping. Reads like the best kind of mystery story. It is a tale of mistresses and heirlooms, cowardice and connivance.” – The Sunday Times (London)“Compelling. A remarkable piece of research which throws a bright shaft of light on powerful people, hypocrisy and the First World War.” – The Guardian
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Product details
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books; First Ed edition (December 31, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143124730
ISBN-13: 978-0143124733
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.5 out of 5 stars
490 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#368,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The author had me until she felt the need to dazzle me with her research skills by forcing down my throat unnecessary letters and information that wasted my time. She had me in her hand for the first half of the book. I was intrigued. I was mesmerized with the story she was telling and her talent as a historical researcher. But then she lost me. I think she let her interest in World War I get the best of her. The first half of this book is excellent. But then it just gets lost and so completely bogged down with unnecessary letters and tributaries that the reader can't remember what happened in the first half. I blame the publisher's editor for not informing this author that this book should have been cut down to 1/3 of its size. Worse, after the author tortures us with unnecessary, unrelated details about nothing in the second half of the book, she fails to go back at the end and tie it all together. Like, how about just one page that reminds us about what the final verdict was about the three missing periods in Duke's life he sought to cover up. But, no we get none of that. Had the publisher's editor insisted on cutting out all the wasted trivia about nothing, this book could have been good. Oh, and those hauntings? Try a half a page and that's it...just about one single staircase that one person says she was pushed down by someone who wasn't there and some dogs that wouldn't go down it. That's it. In the end, don't bother with this one.
I mistakenly expected this book to be about the subject matter of the author's research--as opposed to " THE STORY of how Catherine Bailey set out to do some research for a book which ended up taking a completely different direction ". Admittedly, the fault may be my own but in fairness to me, the jacket does paint a different picture. Clearly printed on the cover is "A true story of a haunted castle, a plotting duchess, and a family secret."The opening lines of the book vividly set the scene for an intriguing mystery surrounding the death of the 9th Duke of Rutland, and then the author veers off course. This book reads like a BBC documentary (To paraphrase : "The Duchess suggested I see the crypt, but first I went to the library to view the land records. It was a drizzly afternoon and the lighting was poor" type thing. ).Conservatively, 30% of this book is spent needlessly manufacturing drama and an additional 20% is spent detailing all manner of needless commentary through which the reader must plod to get to the bones of the story. And make no mistake, there IS a compelling story to be told. Had the author constrained her focus to the actual story and wholly ignored the minutiae of her research process, I would be more excited about this book. If you can tolerate the superfluous and extraneous blather that makes up half of this book, you will find an interesting glimpse into the lives of several generations of a privileged family of nobility. You will also learn some interesting historical perspective concerning the decline of prestige and fortunes within peerage and how the influx of billions of American dollars by way of marriages served to buttress the system.
To begin with, I feel the title is misleading which no doubt contributes to disappointment/confusion. The end result is a sad tale of wasted potential; sad in that it deals with rather purposeless, self-centered people who inherited privilege which seemed not to have given them depth or compassion. The exception would be Lady Diana Manners who did become a nurse, working very hard to do her patriotic duty when the times certainly did not encourage young aristocratic women to do such. As a researcher/writer, I would be in pure heaven if given the opportunity Ms. Bailey was by the current Duke of Rutland; I would be literally beside myself with glee if I could comb through all those private correspondences and war records. Thank goodness people once wrote copious letters and kept them all for how else would we have a personal take on history? However, if one is not inclined toward this, the very premise of the author’s work to uncover the “mysteries†could become tedious. There is repetition and the author's habit of Italics for emphasis which I found distracting in that I am able to decipher on my own when a moment is pertinent. As for the Downton Abbey tie in, this is not a fictional drama or a novel but it does offer insight on how the household of a ducal system operated and good descriptions of the castle and the land. I found the photographs especially enlightening. If one is a history buff as I am, the significance of Belvoir Castle remaining in the hands of the same family and their ability to trace their ancestry to the man who carried the banner for William the Conqueror compelling. Having an interest in World War One and the details of the horror of life in the trenches would go a long way toward finding this a good read.
When reading a synopsis of the story, it sounded it would be something I'd love. It sounded like it had it all- a castle, haunted no less, and an old family with secrets, etc, lots of intrigue. Even with a rather slow start I thought it would pick up a little and get on with it. But the way the story plodded over details and descriptions, it became so bogged down I lost interest. The story is true, but that didn't keep it from being boring.There were no ghosts, the castle sounded like it needed a good cleaning, and the people who lived there didn't capture my interest, not even John, the man with the secret. If this had been fiction, and the author could have worked things out at her will, and had left out some of the mind-numbing details, it would have made a good read. And BTW-- why is every book now being compared to "Downton Abby?" Just because it's set in England with a rich family and a big house? I wish that would stop. This book is nothing like "Downton Abby." I read the last couple of chapters to find out the secret, and it was not worth getting to. So I did the right thing by skipping large parts. Thank goodness.
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