Ok, so Wideacre is kind of a series that Philippa Gregory did, and it's amazing! You probably should be open to reading about some seriously twisted stuff in order to like the series though! It's made up of three books; Wideacre, The Favored Child, and Meridon. I do believe it takes place during the 1700's in England. Gregory has a knack of being incredibly descriptive without the reader even being aware of it. Her descriptions flow so smoothly, and fit so well into the story that as a reader you aren't trying to skip through the descriptions and get to the good stuff. She does it effortlessly, and it's evident in all of her books. I've read every one of her books, and although I may not love all of them, I do think they are all well written!
Anyways.....Wideacre deals with a brother and sister, and the sister, Beatrice Lacey's, obsession with the land, and her dismay over the fact that because she's a girl she can never own the land in her own right, even though she feels as though she is the rightful owner b/c of her love and understanding of the land and it's people. In order to get what she believes is rightfully hers she schemes and lies and ends up destroying herself and everything around her trying to get what she wants, the land. Philippa gives the reader such a good view of Beatrice's mind, and why she's doing the things she does, that it's hard to see her as evil, even though she obviously does become evil by the end. It shows how Beatrice's obsession with Wideacre essentially pushes her to insanity. I just love Philippa Gregory's writing style. At the end you're not rooting for Beatrice, but you understand her.
There definitely are some pretty hot sex scenes in this book, which Philippa has in many of her books. It's a little twisted b/c there is incest in this series, so it is a little shocking at first. I've actually read this series twice, and I rarely read books twice unless I absolutely love them. It was just the right mix of history and drama to make it impossible for me to put the book down!
Philippa Gregory is my favorite author. I'm currently working on a historical fiction piece, myself, which had me researching the time-line of this book (since I can't find my copy).
ReplyDeleteSorry for the lengthy pretext, but I felt compelled to explain how I stumbled into your blog.
Now that I'm here, I have to say that your view of the book is very similar to my own- I'd love to chat sometime! It's so rare to find someone else who's into historical fiction.
Anyway, glad I stumbled into this- keep on reading!