Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Lady's Maid: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Lady's Maid: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Lady's Maid: A Novel
    Ebook467 pages9 hours

    The Lady's Maid: A Novel

    By Dilly Court

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From internationally bestselling author Dilly Court comes a breathtaking historical saga about fate, friendship, and family

    Born on the same night in the summer of 1854, two infants are ripped away from their young mothers. Kate lives the life of a servant, penniless and shackled to her circumstances, while Josie grows up in the lap of luxury, given privilege and freedom she takes for granted.

    Although their lives couldn't be more different, Kate and Josie have been friends since childhood. But their past binds them together in ways they must never know.

    Until a chance meeting with a gypsy woman in the street forces Kate and Josie to confront the truth of their pasts—a truth that turns both worlds upside down and threatens their friendship and their very lives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 12, 2015
    ISBN9780062412089
    Unavailable
    The Lady's Maid: A Novel
    Author

    Dilly Court

    Dilly Court is a Sunday Times bestselling author of over forty novels. She grew up in North-East London and began her career in television, writing scripts for commercials. She is married with two grown-up children, four grandchildren, and three beautiful great-grandchildren. Dilly now lives in Dorset on the beautiful Jurassic Coast with her husband. To find out more about Dilly, please visit her website and her Facebook page: www.dillycourt.comwww.facebook.com/DillyCourtAuthor

    Read more from Dilly Court

    Related to The Lady's Maid

    Related ebooks

    Sagas For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Braving the STORM

      Aug 17, 2021

      Braving the STORM
      6 min read

    • Article

      Saving Freyfaxi

      Feb 1, 2024

      Saving Freyfaxi
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Wind Feels Loss

      Aug 8, 2019

      The Wind Feels Loss
      7 min read

    • Article

      Little CHARMS

      Oct 19, 2022

      Little CHARMS
      6 min read

    • Article

      Cast Out

      Jul 10, 2021

      Verity pushed back the quilts, rolled off her straw mattress onto the floor, felt for the poker, and stirred the ashes. The embers glowed. She wouldn’t have to go fire-borrowing again. Her chilled hands were clumsy. One glowing bit of wood rolled fro

      21 min read

    • Article

      The Lady In WHITE

      Oct 18, 2023

      The Lady In WHITE
      6 min read

    • Article

      A False Friend In The Blue Forest

      Jun 4, 2021

      I blink my eyes open and my gaze falls on dried palm fronds crisscrossing – not the white of my bedroom ceiling. For a minute, I am confused. Where am I? Then it comes back. I’m in my grandmother’s village in Bamboung, in the middle of nowhere. To ge

      7 min read

    • Article

      Drawn to THE MOORS

      Feb 8, 2022

      Drawn to THE MOORS
      11 min read

    • Article

      Saving Freyfaxi

      Mar 1, 2024

      Saving Freyfaxi
      8 min read

    • Article

      THE Dark Light

      Oct 14, 2020

      THE Dark Light
      9 min read

    • Article

      Not Quite MR DARCY

      Aug 10, 2022

      Not Quite MR DARCY
      6 min read

    • Article

      Saving Freyfaxi

      Apr 1, 2024

      Saving Freyfaxi
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Silence of Witches

      Dec 10, 2019

      The Silence of Witches
      6 min read

    • Article

      Annabelle CHANGES HER MIND

      Jan 6, 2021

      Annabelle CHANGES HER MIND
      6 min read

    • Article

      THE Dark Light

      Oct 21, 2020

      THE Dark Light
      9 min read

    • Article

      Four Things You Hear

      Jan 1, 2023

      THE HOLLOW OF the oak tree wasn’t dark enough. Zoia squeezed her head between her knees, letting her wool dress mute the sunlight, the sounds of the forest, and the angry knife of grief that found her heart every time she thought about last night. Zo

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Thin Place

      Nov 16, 2020

      We looked out of the window at the torrential rain. We’d booked tickets for the Castle’s Halloween event. The Castle was famous for being haunted by the ghost of its last court jester and made the most of this reputation every October, hosting a fair

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Glass Ceiling

      Aug 21, 2023

      ‘You’re late.” Evangeline glanced up from her workbench, neck already aching from the intricate creation before her: a hat decorated with no fewer than six hummingbirds, pinned to netting so fine it would look as though the creatures were, indeed, fl

      6 min read

    • Article

      Every CLOUD

      Aug 31, 2022

      Every CLOUD
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Scarlet PEBBLE

      Feb 28, 2024

      The Scarlet PEBBLE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Left To Lose

      Jul 10, 2022

      Around the time she gives up her name, it starts to feel like this entire revolution isn’t worth it anymore. The world is probably lucky that Kelian—she still remembers Kelian, in spite of everything—is there to pick up the pieces, the way he always

      11 min read

    • Article

      The White Fox

      Oct 13, 2017

      The White Fox
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Alpaca EXPERIENCE

      May 25, 2021

      The Alpaca EXPERIENCE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Building SANDCASTLES

      Jul 15, 2020

      Building SANDCASTLES
      6 min read

    Reviews for The Lady's Maid

    4/5

    10 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I was so looking forward to this book after having read The Best of Daughters. I do thoroughly enjoy Ms. Court's writing style and her magical way of working the most mundane of the workaday into a scene. She makes churning butter and collecting the eggs seem like fun. I was just not as enamored of one of the heroines in this tale - she had little to redeem her and even as she "grew" she grew too little. It's hard to fall in love with a book when you cringe every time a main character makes an appearance or opens her mouth.Two baby girls are born within hours of each other and both are given away. One was born to a gypsy girl who had a one night stand with a boy she should not have and the other was born to an upper class woman who died in childbirth. The gypsy baby goes to a rich family to be raised in comfort and the other to a poor family. This is a book all about the distinctions and separations between the classes in mid-19th century England. While the two girls, Kate and Josie become friends - Josie never lets Kate forget that she is a maid. A lower class girl, a servant.It's the character of Josie that so grated on my nerves. She is obnoxious and uncaring. Even when her actions hurt others - physically or emotionally - she doesn't change. It's all for Josie or nothing. Even to the last page of the novel she was hellbent on what she wanted and that was that. There was perhaps a bit of softening but not enough to make me care enough about her. Kate was her direct opposite and she was what kept me reading until the end. I so wanted it all to work out for her and I don't understand why she put up with Josie's mistreatment for as long as she did. But some manner of tension is necessary in a book...The romances were very well written and both "heroes" were the kind a reader wants in a romance novel. Harry and Sam are well suited to their respective women and they understand their quirks and personalities. I won't give up on Dilly Court because of this one character, that would be foolish. I still enjoyed the bulk of this book. But a dislike formed that early on is hard to drop and I just never came around to Josie - I guess Kate is a better woman....
    • 4/5
      Though I am not a big reader of British historical romance novels, there was something about Dilly Court's The Lady's Maid that grabbed my attention. Maybe it was that awesome author's name- Dilly Court; I mean, how can you resist that? Maybe it was the cover, which reminded me of all those paperback books you would see in the racks near the back of the pharmacy at your local drugstore.Whatever it was, I am so glad I read it. I was captivated from the very beginning, with two young woman, one a gyspy girl and one a lost lady ready to give birth to their babies in the woods, alone except for gypsy girl's mother.The gypsy girl was pregnant by the son of the lord of the manor where she worked; he didn't know or care and she was betrothed to another man who wouldn't marry her if he knew the truth. The lady's fiancee was a soldier, off to war where he would die in battle. Her family wanted to hide her pregnancy for reasons of propriety.The lady did not live after childbirth, and asked the gypsy woman to care for her baby and name her Katherine. The gypsy woman knew of a farmer whose wife had had several stillborn births and had just lost another. She delivered the baby to the farmer, telling him the baby's name and convincing him to tell his wife her own baby had lived this time.The gypsy girl's baby was delivered to the wealthy landowner's lady-in-waiting, who conspired with her lady to pass the baby, a girl called Josephine, off as her husband's heir, as she could not have children. Just as you would expect, all the chickens will come home to roost as secrets can't stay hidden forever.Kate worked as a maid in the castle where Josie was raised as royalty. They became best friends and although Josie could be spoiled, impulsive and temperamental, she did love Kate. Josie had a little bit of Scarlett O'Hara in her (she even shatters a glass against a wall as Scarlett did in a famous scene), and maybe that is why I liked her. It even takes place in the 1860's, as Gone With The Wind did.Kate lived with her father after her mother died, and Sam and Molly, two orphans who ended up on their doorstep and were taken in by her father. Sam, Kate and Josie grew up together, and as they grew older, Sam had feelings for Josie that she wanted to return, but knew that love between could never be.Josie had her eye on Harry, a handsome, wealthy merchant whom her father wanted her to marry. Once Harry met Kate however, he fell hard for her. Kate tried to hide her growing attraction to Harry, but Josie could see and became livid.The romantic entanglements with Josie, Harry, Kate, Sam added some more elements as a local reverend who took Kate and Josie in after a carriage accident and widower who wanted Kate to marry him and become a mother to his two bratty daughters become involved.The Lady's Maid delighted me, and Court takes a story that we are familiar with and adds her fresh spin on it. The many characters are well-drawn and interesting, from Kate and Josie down to the minor characters of Josie's elderly former nanny, and Boy, a young disabled cook whom Kate befriends.This is a book to get lost in, transported back to old England where you hope that in the end, true love and friendship prevail, and everyone gets what they truly deserve, good and bad.
    • 4/5
      I was so looking forward to this book after having read The Best of Daughters. I do thoroughly enjoy Ms. Court's writing style and her magical way of working the most mundane of the workaday into a scene. She makes churning butter and collecting the eggs seem like fun. I was just not as enamored of one of the heroines in this tale - she had little to redeem her and even as she "grew" she grew too little. It's hard to fall in love with a book when you cringe every time a main character makes an appearance or opens her mouth.Two baby girls are born within hours of each other and both are given away. One was born to a gypsy girl who had a one night stand with a boy she should not have and the other was born to an upper class woman who died in childbirth. The gypsy baby goes to a rich family to be raised in comfort and the other to a poor family. This is a book all about the distinctions and separations between the classes in mid-19th century England. While the two girls, Kate and Josie become friends - Josie never lets Kate forget that she is a maid. A lower class girl, a servant.It's the character of Josie that so grated on my nerves. She is obnoxious and uncaring. Even when her actions hurt others - physically or emotionally - she doesn't change. It's all for Josie or nothing. Even to the last page of the novel she was hellbent on what she wanted and that was that. There was perhaps a bit of softening but not enough to make me care enough about her. Kate was her direct opposite and she was what kept me reading until the end. I so wanted it all to work out for her and I don't understand why she put up with Josie's mistreatment for as long as she did. But some manner of tension is necessary in a book...The romances were very well written and both "heroes" were the kind a reader wants in a romance novel. Harry and Sam are well suited to their respective women and they understand their quirks and personalities. I won't give up on Dilly Court because of this one character, that would be foolish. I still enjoyed the bulk of this book. But a dislike formed that early on is hard to drop and I just never came around to Josie - I guess Kate is a better woman....