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Wideacre
648 pages
A feverish, gothic descent into one woman's ruthless and scandalous obsession with her ancestral land.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like being swept into a fever dream of ambition, scandal, and dark obsession. The narrative moves with a propulsive, almost breathless energy, anchored by an unapologetic anti-heroine whose fierce love for her ancestral estate drives her to commit increasingly shocking acts. The mood is lush yet dread-soaked, wrapping the reader in a claustrophobic world of toxic family dynamics and twisted desires. The prose is intensely sensory, vividly evoking the beauty of the English countryside while contrasting it with the moral decay of the characters who inhabit it. It is a deliciously dark, melodramatic experience that will captivate readers who crave sweeping gothic sagas, morally bankrupt protagonists, and stories where passion inevitably curdles into poison.
- Mood
- feverish
- dread-soaked
- lush
- claustrophobic
- Tone
- unapologetic
- melodramatic
- ruthless
- passionate
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- destructive obsession · thwarted female ambition · toxic family bonds · corrupting nature of greed · primal connection to the land
- The writing
- Lush, breathless, and intensely sensory, pulling the reader directly into the protagonist's fevered mindset.
- The arc
- Begins with fierce, sympathetic ambition and spirals into a horrifying descent of unchecked obsession and moral decay.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love unapologetic, deeply flawed anti-heroines and sweeping, scandalous gothic melodramas.
Content notes
- incest
- murder
- sexual violence
- animal death
- emotional abuse
About the book
Editorial Reviews Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly Gregory's full-blown first novel is a marvelously assured period piece, an English gothic with narrative verve. Beatrice Lacey loves nothing more than the family estate, Wideacrenot her bluff, hearty father, her weak brother, Harry, or her mother, who can't quite believe mounting evidence that damns her passionate daughter. Foiled in her hunger to own the estate by the 18th century laws of entail, Beatrice plots her father's death, knowing she can twist Harry in any direction she chooses, for her brother harbors a dark, perverted secret. Their incestuous tangle is not broken even by Harry's marriage. And while a bounteous harvest multiplies, no one gainsays the young squire and his sister, the true master of Wideacre. Beatrice marries also, managing to hide the paternity of two children sired by Harry until her increasing greed squeezes the land and its people dry, and the seeds of destruction she has sown come to their awful fruition. Gregory effortlessly breathes color and life into a tale of obsession built around a ruthless, fascinating woman. Doubleday Book Club main selection; Literary Guild alternate; major ad/promo.
Description from Open Library.
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