Any “Downton Abbey” fan knows the disaster a noble family in Edwardian England would face if a daughter was to sleep with or elope with a man to whom she was not married, or have a baby out of wedlock. The social demands of the time dictated the behavior of the upper class, and those who did not conform were, in Lady Mary’s words from series one, “ruined.” So we find one of the main characters of SECRETS OF NANREATH HALL.

Lady Katherine Trenowyth is the daughter of the Earl of Melcombe and lives in Nanreath Hall in Cornwall, England in 1913. She isn’t like her younger sister, who dreams of nothing more than having a grand wedding. Lady Katherine wants to go to art school in London and for everyone to call her Kitty. She longs for freedom outside the walls of Nanreath and the constructs of noble life.

"The most fascinating subtext within the narratives is the concurrence of the world wars and how those wars differed while demonstrating the same level of devastation for one family."

She meets Simon Halliday when Lord Melcombe hires a fashionable Hungarian painter to capture the likeness of his family the summer before World War I. Simon is the artist’s assistant, and Kitty is instantly smitten, as he is with her. A few months after they meet in Cornwall, the pair begin to “accidentally” bump into each other in London. One day Kitty and her mother come across a painting, done by Simon, of a girl who looks suspiciously like Kitty. In the painting, she is naked beneath a sheet, with a “come hither” look on her face. Though it came entirely from Simon’s imagination, the painting is enough to spark her mother’s outrage and whispers in London society.

Desperate and in love, Kitty leaves her family to make a life for herself in London, a life that allows her to do the things her noble one doesn’t: go to art school and be with Simon. Eventually Kitty moves in to Simon’s flat and begins taking classes at the Byam. Despite his professions of undying love, Simon never asks for Kitty’s hand and manages to quiet her questions without the promise of action. When the war comes, Simon enlists. Before he leaves for France, Kitty and Simon spend one last night together. Less than two months later, Simon is killed and Kitty is pregnant.

The result of that pregnancy is Anna Trenowyth, a Red Cross volunteer nurse during World War II who is stationed at a convalescent hospital in Cornwall in 1940. Anna’s previous assignment was at the front; after barely surviving the horror of Dunkirk, she accepts her new post at Nanreath Hall, knowing full well it’s her family’s home but not knowing anything about any of them --- or her parents.

Anna is orphaned at the age of six when Kitty dies of cancer and leaves her in the care of the Handleys. She is on her way to see them before she goes to Nanreath; they want to tell her about her mother and the family who disowned Kitty. But the couple dies in an air raid before Anna can get to London, so she goes to Nanreath with only her name and a locket containing pictures of her mother and father.

There she meets Hugh, Lord of Nanreath and her cousin, and his mother, Lady Boxley, the wife of Kitty’s only brother. Hugh is welcoming, but she receives nothing except resentment from Lady Boxley. Anna tries to throw herself into her duties as a volunteer nurse alongside her friends and roommates Sophie and Tilly. She also meets Tony Lambert, a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force who is taken with Anna from their introduction. Anna’s ultimate purpose outside her nursing seems to be to uncover the identity of her father, the truth about her mother’s life and what happened between them.

The story switches between Kitty’s perspective, told in first person narration, and Anna’s, told in third. Whether it’s the third person narrative or that the dialogue in SECRETS OF NANREATH HALL is much too modern for either era (but especially Edwardian England), Anna’s story is the most engaging. The book is predictable; the secrets of the hall aren’t much of a surprise, but the backdrop of war lends a lovely poignancy to the overall story. The most fascinating subtext within the narratives is the concurrence of the world wars and how those wars differed while demonstrating the same level of devastation for one family.