This entire series was so frustrating to me. The author wrote literal "squirrel!" moments into the book. Except those moments were the most important events that the entire book was leading up to!

She writes characters that seem to become important, and then they are just as quickly abandoned; their stories completed with some weird way of writing them off. Other characters are gone for a while and then come back for an equally strange reason. Sometimes characters completely change their mind and outlook on their world in what feels like just a couple of paragraphs. I feel like the author brainstormed great characters with interesting, half-formed backstories and just never bothered to finish them. Instead, she decided she was bored with them and wanted to go write about something else instead...leading to another character that would have the same fate.

Story lines that seem to be converging just never do. Or if they do, the actual climax point is told as an epilogue, or afterthought from a character looking back on an event. Babies are born ten minutes after lab or starts, and everything just works out fine even though the characters were so naive they didn't even know how a baby would get out of a body! Ladies turn into hardened criminals in days and then are randomly accepted into the family again. The farther into this series I read, the more confused I became.

The first book was bad. The next two were much worse. Get your Downton Abbey fix elsewhere.

Not quite as gripping as Book 2 in the trilogy but still very enjoyable. Nice little twist towards the end that lead to a very satisfying wrap up. These three books were just the escapist, entertaining reads I needed.

Five years have passed since last we heard from the Dilbernes. Minnie and Arthur are the proud parents of two young boys (the heir and the spare), a newly widowed Rosina is returning from Australia, and Robert is well ensconced in his government position. When Robert invites the king to Dilberne Court for a shoot, the whole household is thrown upside down. Old acquaintances reappear, new relationships are formed, old relationships are called into question - all midst the tumult of Edwardian England. Fay Weldon crafts the final book with the same attention to historical detail while simultaneously appealing to modern sensibilities. This final installment of the trilogy will not disappoint.

All three audiobooks in this series are read by Katherine Kellgren. Her performance adds another dimension to this series, and is a pleasure to listen to. Her expressions and characterization a are spot on! Highly recommend this for any fan of Downton Abbey!

http://www.girllostinabook.com/2014/02/review-new-countess-by-fay-weldon.html

Fans of Downton Abbey have been drawn to Weldon's trilogy hoping for more of their beloved above-and-below stairs soapiness, and many were disappointed to find the Dilberne clan to be such a lot of snooty, venal, narrow-minded, horny rotters -- and their downstairs staff no better. But Weldon, who wrote the pilot episodes of Upstairs Downstairs, brings her trademark snarkiness about gender and class relations to the over-romanticized world of Edwardian manor drama. This third installment is a wickedly funny conclusion to the saga, and offers an efficient portrait of just what kinds of attitudes brought about the cataclysmic -- and welcome -- end of the British class system that the makers of Downton Abbey seem to wish was still in effect.

The conclusion to this trilogy was as irresistibly readable as the previous volumes. The hijinx of the high-born continue as Arthur and Minnie’s happy marriage settles in and devolves into a morass as the husband and wife are frustrated by their cultural expectations and limitations, and their lack of communication culminates in a dramatic act that nearly tears the family apart. The Earl and Countess prepare for a visit from royalty, with all the fuss and bother that can be expected of such an honour. And Rosina returns from Australia and steps right back into her life of intellect, verging on the bohemian. As with the previous books, the title only hints at the substance, and its significance is only revealed toward the very end, in which the climax and denouement occur in rapid succession after such a long, slow buildup, I didn’t even realize that’s what I was reading. It is a smart and charming story.