100 books like Below Stairs

Ever since I was a child, the rumors surrounding my grandfather’s mysterious birth and upbringing have fascinated me! Left at a police station on Christmas Eve, 1923, he grew up in a New York orphanage. When he was of age, the nuns handed him a large sum of money and told him his father was FDR and his mother was a servant of the Roosevelt’s. Was it true? Was it fiction? My family has spent collective decades combing through papers in search of answers. I finally decided to take the pieces of the story we knew and knit them together with fiction to create my first novel, A Roosevelt Smile.

Ever since I was a child, the rumors surrounding my grandfather’s mysterious birth and upbringing have fascinated me! Left at a police station on Christmas Eve, 1923, he grew up in a New York orphanage. When he was of age, the nuns handed him a large sum of money and told him his father was FDR and his mother was a servant of the Roosevelt’s. Was it true? Was it fiction? My family has spent collective decades combing through papers in search of answers. I finally decided to take the pieces of the story we knew and knit them together with fiction to create my first novel, A Roosevelt Smile.

Ever since I was a child, the rumors surrounding my grandfather’s mysterious birth and upbringing have fascinated me! Left at a police station on Christmas Eve, 1923, he grew up in a New York orphanage. When he was of age, the nuns handed him a large sum of money and told him his father was FDR and his mother was a servant of the Roosevelt’s. Was it true? Was it fiction? My family has spent collective decades combing through papers in search of answers. I finally decided to take the pieces of the story we knew and knit them together with fiction to create my first novel, A Roosevelt Smile.

Ever since I was a child, the rumors surrounding my grandfather’s mysterious birth and upbringing have fascinated me! Left at a police station on Christmas Eve, 1923, he grew up in a New York orphanage. When he was of age, the nuns handed him a large sum of money and told him his father was FDR and his mother was a servant of the Roosevelt’s. Was it true? Was it fiction? My family has spent collective decades combing through papers in search of answers. I finally decided to take the pieces of the story we knew and knit them together with fiction to create my first novel, A Roosevelt Smile.

The passion I have for food was born during my childhood in France when I learned how to cook and bake with my mother, and it never faded away. I still continue to explore, and I have the chance to participate in more than sixty tastings a year. When traveling, I always prepare my trips by searching the web for unique restaurants, coffee roasters, breweries, and local bakeries. When I interview culinary leaders, I am curious about their innovation and their creative process. Chef Elizabeth Falkner wrote in my book foreword, “Emmanuel genuinely seems like he is trying to solve a puzzle, which is why his book is an important piece of writing.”

As readers may have gathered from the five books I’ve chosen, my childhood obsessions and passions have had an immense influence on my later writing life. Somewhat to my surprise, I must say. I’ve been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer, movie critic, and have written screenplays. But returning to novels, first with the Sanibel Sunset Detective series and lately with Death at the Savoy and Scandal at the Savoy, I am, in effect, reliving my childhood, using it to write these books. What a joy to be looking back as I move forward—and you always keep the plot moving forward!

World War 2 has always interested me and my curiosity was strengthened a few years ago when my mother told me I was born illegitimate and my father had been the civil engineer building a nearby bomber airfield and a lodger with her parents. She was ashamed of what happened and lost contact with my father before I was born. Consequently, I wrote my first novel Unplanned. I then met the daughter of the Berlin mother in Abandoned in Berlin, and found it natural to pursue this story, given what I had discovered about my own upbringing. The effort has taught me to seek to forgive but never to forget.

Since I was very young, I’ve had experiences with the paranormal. Whether it be a soft graze along my cheek or a spirit standing in front of me, I’ve always been drawn to things behind the veil. Joining the world of the living with the dead comes natural for me, and reading the genres of paranormal and fantasy is like a cup of hot tea on a chilly winter afternoon.

I’m an aspiring foodie and a huge lover of books with a great food subplot (or main plot!). I’ve been known to read cookbooks for fun and probably the most thumbed book in our house is my copy of The Joy of Cooking. I’m a firm believer in reading books at the lunch table and that no book should be read without a cup of coffee and a cookie (at the minimum) near one’s elbow. Hopefully you find these books to be as drool-worthy as I did!

As you get to know the characters I create, you'll be imbued with a sense of hope and possibility–with the magic that can happen when someone pokes a toe out of her comfort zone and makes things happen. You'll relate to discrete characters, who like most women, desire and deserve true love, authentic relationships—whether they be friends, mothers, daughters, or lovers–and meaningful work. You'll care about their emotional hurts, the misunderstandings that cause them to stumble, and cheer them on as they make choices that ultimately lead them to create empowered, fulfilling lives. Hooking you from the first sentence, I'll ignite your brain's hardwired desire to learn what happens next.