Award-winning screenwriter and author
The Butler's Guide to Love and Other Graces is not a romance, as the title suggests, but a sweeping historical novel of service and grace, one that will leave you heartbroken, while at the same time bursting with hope.
From Edwardian London through the ashes of two world wars, Fletcher Blackstone, a butler who gives his heart to a woman beyond his class, defies his employer, the master of the house who saved his life at birth and will resent him ever after. Fletcher's life is not shaped by grand declarations of love, but by the quiet rooms he tends, the people he protects, and the sacrifices he makes through duty, grief, war, forgiveness, and the obedience of a man who must learn that grace comes at a cost, and service has a breaking point.
This 83,615-word upmarket historical telling with book club appeal builds to an ending as shattering as it is redemptive, with the secrets of Kate Morton's The House at Riverton, and the sweeping wartime heartbreak of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale.
Limited ARCs (advance reader copies) available
The word butler comes from the Old French bouteillier—keeper of the bottles—and can be traced to medieval Europe. As great houses grew, so did the role. The butler became head of the male servants, guardian of the pantry, silver, and formal table, and, by the golden age of service, the quiet face of the house itself.
For Fletcher Blackstone, the calling was something higher still: anticipation without intrusion, presence without attention, loyalty without possession. As head of Eversley Manor, he saw everything, knew everything, and belonged to nothing.
Until the moment he saw her on Marylebone Lane, and fell in love.
