Motor Maid

When Lys d'Angely accepts a position as housemaid to the tempestuous Lady Turnour, she expects drudgery. What she gets is a motor tour across the English countryside in one of the first automobiles ever to grace its roads. As the chauffeur battles mud and mechanical failures, Lys finds herself navigating something far more treacherous: the rigid class system of Edwardian England, a growing attraction to the charming Sir Samuel, and the surprising discovery that a maid can be clever, daring, and very funny indeed. She begins signing her letters "The Motor Maid" - part jest, part declaration of independence. The novel captures a world on the verge of transformation, where new machines promised to shatter old social barriers as surely as they shattered old manners. Williamson writes with sparkling wit about a heroine who refuses to be confined, even as the open road offers escape into something like freedom, something like love.