100 Books Like Below Stairs

James, the eldest Roosevelt son, gives readers a firsthand glimpse into growing up Roosevelt.

His heartwarming anecdotes add color to a world that seems black and white. One of the most endearing stories he shared came from the night Franklin won the presidency and humbly asked his son to pray for him. These memories provide an intimate glimpse of the man who was FDR.

Elliott Roosevelt, Franklin and Eleanor's third-born, must have read his older brother's book and thought, "That’s not all!"

Always sensitive to his surroundings, Elliott knew things were not right between his parents. He felt the turbulence of Eleanor's "Griselda" moods, recounting an incident that drove her to fire all of their servants after mounting distrust. Where older brother James would write of catching fish with their father on a boat trip, Elliott divulged the sting of witnessing Missy LeHand on his father's lap during that same trip. Elliott also mentioned household staff members including Frances and Millie, who come to the forefront in my own novel.

To delve into the Roosevelt’s household and those that sustained their lifestyles, Sara Delano Roosevelt's household book is a gem! It was republished by Clara and Hardy Steeholm, accompanied by a beautifully written family history.

This book offers a captivating look at a bygone era, demonstrating how Sara Roosevelt carried her Victorian upbringing into the 20th century. Readers will discover her recipes and learn about their origins. Handwritten notes even reveal the layette set Sara Roosevelt stitched for baby FDR and the patterns for sweaters she knitted for her grandchildren.

Each becomes a replicable piece of Roosevelt history to adorn your parlor- if you have one!

While Below Stairs might be tinged with drama, Rose shows readers the loyal, dutiful side of a lady's maid to the incredibly influential Nancy Astor.

Rose details the tumultuous yet rewarding relationship she built with Lady Astor that lasted until the day of her death in this touching story. A fun fact loosely touched on in the memoir, without specifically naming the Roosevelts, was that the Astors visited and stayed at Springwood with FDR, including the memoirist, Rose!

I adore the way award-winning chef Iliana Regan writes. She intertwines raw, challenging images with sublime writing about food, cooking, and running a restaurant. Growing up in a rundown Indiana farmhouse, as a child, she locates a natural ability for food and foraging, undergirded by hard-won knowledge from her father.

Meanwhile, she and her entire family sense her queerness from a very young age. Her origins aren’t super pretty; she flips them inside out and creates her own form of beauty from austerity. The house and surrounding woods inextricably inform her worldview as a chef, and her evolution is glorious and arduous. 

I was overwhelmed by this crazy, lovable, frightening novel. It fit right in with my paranormal/horror bend when I read it many years ago, and it provoked my interest in writing a few titles in the genre.

It fits the unique, quirky character theme perfectly with a first person narrative by a young, charismatic fry cook-writer-memoirist named Odd (real name) Thomas with a sixth sense, able to see demons when they arrive just before tragedy occurs. Yowza. His accomplice is his girlfriend and love interest, aptly named Stormy, who is not similarly gifted and seems to have more common sense than Odd.

This fun and heartwarming rom-com by Bethany Turner features a pair of chefs on a cooking show.

An enemies-to-lovers trope where food is the third party in the relationship? Yes, please! I will binge-watch Chopped, The Great British Baking Show, and America’s Test Kitchen all day long. Bethany Turner gave me those vibes and more with this delightful dish.

Marcus is a world-renowned chef and I have the pleasure of working with him at The Medici Group. This is an incredibly honest take of his life and how he got here. He shares his story of what it means to be a Black chef in a non-black chef world. After finding a lack of acceptance in Europe’s kitchens he made his way to New York. There, he built the restaurant and team that reflected his dream of a diverse and multi-ethnic dining room. This is a "boots on the ground" story of the diverse world we live in and the power of embracing that. I also found his thoughts on what it means to be F.O.D. to be powerful (First Only Different).

This is a cute story about friendship, family, and food.

Annie and Julie are childhood best friends who reconnect in adulthood and decide to start a cupcakery called Treat. I loved reading about the start of their business and the descriptions of the cupcakes. I also loved how the title was applied to the story in that each character ate cupcakes differently, which revealed an aspect of their personalities.

Both main characters were well-developed, and I enjoyed seeing how they dealt with their problems and how their perspectives changed over time. 

Five thousand years after leaving the labyrinth, the Minotaur has traded in a diet of virgins for a job as a cook at a North Carolina joint called Grub’s Rib, a casually cannibalistic reference that gives a sense of Sherrill’s dark humor. His life is punctuated by problems that are both conventional (he lives in a trailer park and pines for one of Grub’s waitresses) and un- (his horns are awkward in the tight confines of kitchen and trailer, his tongue makes speech difficult, his penmanship is disastrous). What makes the Minotaur so appealing is that unlike the mortals around him who really have no excuse for cynicism, “M” clings desperately to possibility. “Even in the most tedious unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready.”