Ten new country house sagas filled with drama and family secrets

Possible subtitles for this post:  What to read while waiting for (1) Downton Abbey Season 5 to be shown in the US, or (2) Kate Morton's next book to be published.  Here's a short gallery of "house" sagas published in various locales throughout the English-speaking world – the US, UK, Ireland, and Australia – that I came across recently. 

Although I love this type of novel, I've only read one of them so far and will talk about it at greater length below.  Please chime in and add a comment if you've read any of the rest and can recommend them (or not!).



A forbidding-sounding title for a historically-based novel centering on the last conviction for witchcraft in Ireland, which took place in 1711.  Poolbeg, July 2014.



In this English saga set between the late 19th century and WWI, an ambitious fish merchant does his best to ensure that his daughter Annabel marries into money.  Per the author's intro, her setting was inspired by Gunby Hall and Gardens in Lincolnshire, which appears on the cover.  Pan, August 2014.



The second novel by the acclaimed author of The Sea House revolves around two couples in Derbyshire; secrets dating from the WWII era erupt when their children decide to marry.  The setting sweeps from England to Valencia to Madrid.  Corvus, September 2014.



An Upstairs/Downstairs-style saga set in County Durham before WWI, featuring a young woman who becomes assistant cook at Easterleigh Hall while dreaming of a better life.  Arrow, October 2014.



At an English seaside town in 1965, a runaway gets caught up in discovering secrets dating from the '20s, when a young man came to stay with his cousin at Castaway House.  I featured this in an earlier post and have since bought a copy.  Penguin UK, September 2014.



A remote island in Scotland's Outer Hebrides is the setting for an early 20th-century love triangle between a renowned painter, his much younger wife, and his unacknowledged son. Old secrets get stirred up, along with century-old tensions about land tenancy, when the last living heir to Bhalla House comes to the island in 2010 to assess the ruined property and decide whether it's worth restoring.

Never having heard of the novel before, I grabbed a copy at Waterstones in York in early September and spent my vacation reading it instead of the books I'd brought with me.  The stunning, almost eerie atmosphere, full of the cries of wild birds and the rush of the blue-gray sea, is a character in itself. As often happens with multi-period novels, the historical strand is the most compelling (the modern thread suffers from a female protagonist with little agency), but it's still very much worth reading.  Freight Books (Scotland), March 2014.



A modern-day Irish couple uncover a crime dating from the turn of the century in the course of shooting a docudrama set at Armstrong House during its "golden age."  Poolbeg Press (Ireland), September 2013.



Australia's Blue Mountains are the setting for this expansive saga about 1940s-era artist Rupert Partridge, called "the devil of Australian art," the mystery surrounding the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter, and a modern photographer, Rupert's granddaughter, who's charged with writing a book about his home, Currawong Manor.  This looks to be in the vein of the author's twisty gothic saga Poet's Cottage.  Pan Macmillan Australia, May 2014.



Two women, two eras (1933 and the turn of the century), and a house full of secrets. Fiercombe Manor in rural Gloucestershire is the scene for mystery and tragedy.  The publisher is gearing this novel toward fans of Rebecca and The Little Stranger.  The UK title is The Girl in the Photograph. Harper, February 2015; Penguin UK, January 2015.



A folly, in architectural terms, is a building designed primarily for decorative purposes.  Lulu Taylor's novel spans two generations and has two strands, one set in the '60s and the other in the present day, and deals with a beautiful old castle, an old folly that's supposed to be bad luck, and the ramifications of an illicit love affair.  Pan (UK), December 2013.