A visual preview of the winter season: Downton Abbey readalike edition

In updating the Historical Novel Society's forthcoming books list, I read through a lot of publishers' catalogs.  Certain themes quickly became apparent therein: A number of historical novels for late 2012 through early 2013 are being promoted as good choices for Downton Abbey fans.  (And I'm one of them.  No spoilers on Season Three, please!)  These dozen titles are the focus of this latest visual preview.

With Downton being so enormously popular, publishers are pouncing on literary comparisons.  This doesn't mean these books are carbon copies of one another, though, or that authors are rushing to imitate the show... but if there are any similarities in topic, theme, or setting, you can bet they'll be noted.  Some titles recommended as readalikes, like Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs mysteries, have been around considerably longer than Downton. (There'll be a new Winspear next March, Leaving Everything Most Loved, but the cover isn't available yet.)

That said, if you're an author working on an Edwardian- or WWI-set novel, this may be the year to make that sale!

Most of all, this varied list demonstrates the many different tie-ins that can be made to Downton Abbey, something that interests me as a readers' advisor.  Some of the historical novels below are set in the same pre-WWI-through-1920s timeframe; other are sagas that dramatize the interaction between aristocrats and servants on a grand English estate.  Some emphasize the changing social fabric during wartime in the early 20th century, and for one or two, the main link between them and Downton is their joint focus on strong, capable (British) women. 

All of the titles below are US editions.  Also interestingly:  I've been through some UK catalogs as well, and don't see nearly as many Downton mentions!


 

In Victorian England, a poverty-stricken young woman seeking personal independence and a way to overcome troublesome incidents from her past takes a job at an exclusive seaside resort.  Check out the gorgeous period artwork at the author's Pinterest page.  Gallery, January.

       

Fast-moving biographical fiction about adventuress May Dugas, a notorious con artist and social climber in Gilded Age and 20th century America, London, and Shanghai.  Doubleday, January.

     

The first two books in a trilogy about three women, two aristocratic sisters and the governess's daughter they grew up with, adjusting to society's changing rules in pre-WWI England.  Gallery, January and March.

   

An upstairs-downstairs friendship turns to romance at a great English country house in 1914, as political winds are shifting towards war and a glorious era comes to an end.  Isn't this a gorgeous cover?  NAL, January.

     

Julian Fellowes wrote a blurb for this literary romance set amid the beautiful, unforgiving landscape and cruel diamond mining operations of 1880s South Africa. A young Englishwoman travels there to establish a new life and finds herself confronting social injustice.  Amy Einhorn, April.

   

A backlist title from 1979 gets reissued with a fresh new look to attract Downton fans; the next two volumes in the series will follow. The Passing Bells centers on the aristocratic Greville family of Abingdon Pryory as their world of elegant garden parties and debutante balls comes crashing to a halt as war breaks out in 1914. Rock died in 2004.  December, Morrow.

   

This debut novel by a well-known British historian is a romp through 18th-century London through the eyes of a young woman raised alongside her aristocratic cousins but who's forced to create a new life for herself on the streets. Grand Central, January. 

     

The grimly evoked post-WWI period in Charles Todd's long-running Ian Rutledge mystery series has obvious links for Downton viewers (who should also check out his standalone novel The Walnut Tree, which is out now).  In Proof of Guilt, a seeming hit-and-run accident turns into a murder investigation, but the victim's identity and place of death remain unknown.  Morrow, January.

     

First in a new trilogy from the Upstairs, Downstairs writer, Habits of the House examines the day-to-day lives of an aristocratic English family and their servants as the financially strapped Earl of Dilberne seeks to recoup his fortunes by marrying his son off to a Chicago heiress.  St. Martin's, January.

     

The lives of loves of the inhabitants of an English country mansion, from the original architect to its final owners in the present day, over the span of 240 years.  Simon & Schuster, January.

     

Willig takes an excursion away from her Pink Carnation series with this standalone novel that promises to "bring an Out of Africa feel to a Downton Abbey cast."  A modern-day lawyer learns a century's worth of family secrets in a tale that moves from 21st-century Manhattan to WWI England to 1920s Kenya. St. Martin's, April.

Update, Jan 2013:  For more Downton Abbey readalikes, see Part 2 of this post.