Description

From the author of Sunday Times bestseller Mrs. March comes a gruesome and gleeful new novel that probes the psyche of a bloodthirsty governess in Victorian England.

‘Simmering with rage, propulsive and laugh-out-loud funny’ CATRIONA WARD

Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate’s dreary confines and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more trouble she has sticking to her plan.

Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past until her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning. Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.

‘Riotous, devilishly clever and deliciously appalling’ PAUL TREMBLAY

Publisher Review

'Simmering with rage, propulsive and laugh-out-loud funny, Victorian Psycho speaks profoundly of horror both within and without us. Virginia Feito seems to have invented an entirely new kind of storytelling. This novel is nothing less than a masterpiece' Catriona Ward, bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street 'I am OBSESSED. A gleeful, gory pastiche shot through with pitch-black humour. I ate this up with a spoon.' Kirsty Logan, author of Now She is Witch 'Brutal, bold, and brilliantly macabre. A decadent delight for all lovers of the darkest Victorian gothic.' Essie Fox, author of The Fascination 'Riotous, devilishly clever, and deliciously appalling, Victorian Psycho is flat out brilliant. Long live Winifred! She is the anti-hero this, or any other, century deserves' Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie 'Relentlessly moody in the best possible way, Victorian Psycho asks how anyone could live sanely in a time so systemically cruel. Atmospheric, funny, bloody as hell, I finished it in one sitting' Ainslie Hogarth, author of Motherthing 'Night-black and altogether delicious fun.' Paraic O'Donnell, author of The House on Vesper Sands 'A wicked delight and a hilariously twisted tale, underlining the cruelty of Victorian society with a humourous deftness that is to be admired' Emma Hinds, author of The Knowing Praise for Mrs March: 'A brilliantly tense psychological study from a writer who keeps pace with Du Maurier' Guardian 'Virginia Feito's noirish debut novel left me rapt. An elegant, claustrophobic psychological thriller that feels incredibly original' Evening Standard 'There are shades of Hitchcock and Highsmith here, while the opening chapter puts one in mind of Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Nastily good fun' Metro 'I read Mrs. March in one sitting and was so captured by it. As a character, she is fascinating, complex, and deeply human' Elisabeth Moss