6 YA Novels to Help You Cope with the End of Downton Abbey

A Mad, Wicked Folly, by Sharon Biggs Waller
Imagine you’re a young woman from a wealthy family living in early twentieth-century London. What’s the most scandalous thing you could possibly do? If you chose “pose naked for a bunch of men in your art class (which you technically aren’t supposed to be enrolled in in the first place),” then you’re thinking just like our protagonist, Victoria Darling. This little stunt gets her expelled from her French finishing school and shipped off to marry the wealthy and handsome Edmund Carrick-Humphrey. But Victoria is dead set on attending art school, and it’s not long before she’s sneaking off to work on her portfolio, and getting involved with the Suffragette movement in the process. And speaking of “involved,” she happens to find the perfect muse in a VERY handsome police officer…

Landry Park, by Bethany Hagen
Picture Downton Abbey if it were set in a future dystopia, and you have Landry Park. Madeline Landry is one of the lucky ones: one of her ancestors invented the Cherenkov lantern that the world now relies on, and he’s the heir to a vast fortune. Her father is a powerful man who expects her to marry and take over the family estate, much to Madeline’s dismay. Her dreams of attending university and continuing to enjoy her easy lifestyle are disrupted, however, when her eyes are opened to the way the other 99% of the world lives: the poverty stricken Rootless. Madeline becomes involved with the Rootless rebellion, turning the novel’s focus to a mix of class tension and uprising (and, of course, romance) in a futuristic setting.

Cinder and Sapphires, by Leila Rasheed
A scandal has forced Lady Ava Averley and her father to leave India to return to Somerton, the family’s English estate. To save the family from financial ruin, Ava’s father remarries, and she finds herself dealing with an unpleasant stepmother and step-siblings with secrets of their own. Her new stepbrother is having an illicit affair with his valet, and her stepsister is desperate to marry a lord Ava may have her eye on…if she can stop thinking about Ravi, the Indian boy she kissed on the ship to England. Oh, and Rose, the maid who dreams of a life outside the serving class? Yeah, she’s Ava’s illegitimate half-sister. All Ava dreamed of doing was attending Oxford, but it looks like she’s going to have to deal with a few things first.

The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin
Cora Cash has everything an American socialite could want: beauty, privilege, and more money than she knows what to do with, thanks to her nouveau riche family. Well, not quite everything: as an American from a newly rich family, Cora lacks a title. (Un)luckily for her, her mother is hellbent on fixing this problem, and whisks her off to England in the hopes of finding her a rich lord. Enter Ivo, the Duke of Wareham, who’s in the market for a wealthy wife. Much to her mother’s delight, the two are married, but Cora hasn’t quite gotten her fairytale ending. Her Yankee ways are a subject of scorn in her new aristocratic social circle, and Ivo keeps mysteriously disappearing on her. Being a Duchess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Luxe, by Anna Godberson
It’s 1899, when we meet Manhattan socialite Elizabeth Holland…at her funeral, after she has drowned in the Hudson River after her carriage overturned. Sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? Flashback to before her death: Elizabeth and her sister Diana are the belles of the Manhattan social scene, and trying desperately not to let anyone know their family is broke. To save the family, Elizabeth is set to marry the handsome and rakish Henry Schoonmaker, who also happens to have stolen the heart of her best friend…but may be in love with Diana. Not that Elizabeth should mind, since she’s in love with her coachmen, Will (and so’s her maid, Lina). Things are getting confusing, and it sounds like there are plenty of people who’d like to see Elizabeth out of the way.

Manor of Secrets, by Katherine Longshore
When will parents learn that the quickest way to inspire rebellion in their kids is to force them into an unwanted arranged marriage? Lady Charlotte Edmonds is 16 and dreams of being a writer, but her mother has other plans: namely, to make her the wife of the wealthy, handsome, and boring Lord Andrew Broadhurst (why are lords always wealthy, handsome, and boring?). Instead, she becomes interested in the handsome new footman and befriends Janie, a kitchen maid who dreams of adventure. Expect class conflicts, multiple love triangles, and pretty much everything else you would expect from a Downton Abbey-esque novel.