Set in the 1770’s this is a story of a woman’s passion and obsession for her home Wideacre, and the lengths to which she goes to secure her own future in the home of her childhood.Set in the 1770’s this is a story of a woman’s passion and obsession for her home Wideacre, and the lengths to which she goes to secure her own future in the home of her childhood.
Wideacre is the ancestral home of the Laceys, set in the rolling Downs of Sussex, which will in time pass to Beatrice Lacey’s brother Harry. Beatrice, it is expected, will marry and leave Wideacre and make her home with her husband. As a woman in the 1770s, Beatrice - although the much loved and petted daughter of the house - has no property rights to her childhood home. But while Harry is away at School Beatrice learns all she can of the Wideacre Estate. She learns to care for all the tenants and they start to look to her when they require anything. While she is a child her interest is encouraged by her father, but all too soon she grows up and Harry returns to take his place as the master-in-waiting at Wideacre.
Besides being clever and beautiful, Beatrice is also passionate and it is clear that she will have the pick of the men on offer for a husband. But the older she gets the more her obsession with Wideacre grows, and so Beatrice devises first one plot and then another to achieve her ends. Such is her obsession that she is prepared to be party to murder and more, in her pursuit of her eventual sole ownership of Wideacre.
Although murder is an integral part of this story, the overriding theme is one of obsession. There are also several explicit scenes of a sexual nature that, whilst integral to Beatrice’s quest to own Wideacre, are not usually found in one’s average crime book. Despite this I had to finish it
Jilly Bond did a marvellous job as Beatrice Lacey, she had me enthralled..
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Lizzie Hayes