The Secret Countess

By the award-winning and bestselling author of JOURNEY TO THE RIVER SEA, a novel that sings with characteristic Ibbotson warmth and wit Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholmes crumbling but magnificent mansion. The staff and the family are sure there is something not quite right about their new maidbut she soon wins them over with her warmth and dedication. Then the young Earl returns home from the warand Anna falls hopelessly in love. But they can never be together: Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Murieland anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks .