Books like A Lady Of Quality

Pause for a moment. Note the author. Now to think to yourself, the author who wrote that sappy Little Lord Fauntleroy novel and brought us the darling but perfect Sara Crew in A Little Princess also wrote this book.You're shocked, aren't you? I know. Me too. I kept double-checking in case I missed something. You'd never guess it from her frothy children's novels, but Frances Hodgson Burnett was a badass. (Also, she apparently named some poor son of hers Vivian, but that's something to explore another day.)Where to start to with A Lady of Quality? It isn't what you expect. Despite the increasingly moralistic tone of the characters as the book progresses, this isn't a moralizing story. People do evil, or at least not-so-nice things, and it kinda gets swept under the rug. Only one truly evil person seems to exist and even he shows as more pathetic than despicable. Oh, I suppose this story has its share of extreme melodrama and heaving bosoms and and saintly side characters. The important point is that the main character isn't a saint. She's mean and twisted initially. Burnett redeems her, but not by sacrificing her to wasting disease or anything like that, which is what I kept expecting. She gets a romance for the ages. Though the book builds towards her final, saving romance, it doesn't revolve around it. Different kinds of love push this book along, from a sister's devotion to a Father's self-centeredness. It really is fascinating.I'm intrigued and will definitely need to find more by Burnett!