📺 New TV obsession & fairytale woes 🧚‍♀️

Published: Thu, 03/24/22

Dear Reader,

I've discovered the most wonderful new show this week and had to share it with you! Julian Fellowes (AKA the man responsible for Downton Abbey) has created a brilliant new period piece called The Gilded Age.

The slogan is New Money Old Rules.

And it's everything my opulent historical drama-loving heart could desire.

Set in New York City in the early 1880s, the show centers around a railroad baron and his wife fighting for social status against the Old Guard of New York society. It's set mostly on the Upper East Side (my home for four years!) and is glorious and opulent and a surprisingly broad picture of what life was like at the time.

This is in part due to the typical Fellowes flair for documenting both the upstairs and downstairs struggles. We see the scullery maid hesitate over whether or not to accept the romantic advances of the footman. And in the next scene we watch the mistress of the house resist the slow erosion of her social power by refusing to accept the upstarts next door.

But another reason why the show's coverage of the time period feels more comprehensive than most is because one of the main cast is a strong, young Black woman, Miss Peggy Scott. Through her, we see Brooklyn as it was in the 1880s and I love the complex, unflinching way the show covers her trials and ambitions.

That's probably the thing I appreciate most about the show. No character is just one thing. They're all allowed to be complicated, messy, and each is by turns kind and cruel. It makes them feel real.

...okay, it's really my second favorite thing.

My first favorite thing would have to be the clothes!

Okay so maybe it took hours to get dressed back in the day.

But they sure looked pretty at the end of it!

So if you're looking for an amazing new show to fall in love with...

(and you're not soulless heathens like my friends Mr. & Ms. Melinda who refuse to watch period shows. Mr. Melinda claims they're boring and Ms. Melinda always says she'd have been a scullery maid and so considers them depressing.)

...I highly, highly recommend The Gilded Age.

XoXo,

Edwina

BOOK NEWS

The Bloody Prince is making steady progress. I'm--once again--having a bit of trouble weaving the fairytale into this one. It's a little bit because there are surprisingly few fairytales with proactive princesses. But mostly because the more I get to know the Prince brothers, they more they start controlling their own stories.

You're going to have to look at clues and squint to figure out which fairytale I'm using for this book. I'm not going to tell you which one. I want to see what the guesses are when The Bloody Prince is released.

EDWINA'S BONUS STORIES

Have you read all of my bonus stories? These include special epilogues and my standalone novella free for you, my favorite reader.

I WANT TO READ!

I have run out of Countess Grey tea!!!

Will have to make the dash to Fortnum & Masons this weekend.

oh. damn.