- Paperback: 640 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; New Ed edition (3 Dec 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006514626
- ISBN-13: 978-0006514626
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 96,867 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Favoured Child
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Product Description
Review
‘For sheer pace and percussive drama it will take a lot of beating’
Sunday Times
Product Description
Reissue of the second novel in the Wideacre Trilogy, a compulsive drama set in the eighteenth century.
The Wideacre estate is bankrupt, the villagers are living in poverty and Wideacre Hall is a smoke-blackened ruin.
But in the Dower House two children are being raised in protected innocence. Equal claimants to the inheritance of Wideacre, rivals for the love of the village, they are tied by a secret childhood betrothal but forbidden to marry. Only one can be the favoured child. Only one can inherit the magical understanding between the land and the Lacey family that can make the Sussex village grow green again. Only one can be Beatrice Lacey’s true heir.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Page-turning historical fiction transports you to a turbulent landed estate in 1790s England,
By
This review is from: The Favoured Child (Paperback)
Mysticism, romance, turbulence, rivalry, passion - a gripping historical novel. It is a shock to discover such a great author that I've been missing out on! What a great writer Philippa Gregory is.
The Favoured Child is a sequel to a book called Wideacre, but can equally as well be read on its own. I was over halfway through the book before I realised that I was reading the second book in a series. The story is set in late-eighteenth-century England, on a run-down landed estate on the South Downs, called Wideacre. The estate suffers from a legacy left by the previous Lacey landowner, Beatrice, who perished along with her beloved Wideacre Hall in a suspicious fire a few years previously. The estate is now bankrupt, the village poverty stricken, resentments are felt throughout the estate and this is the inheritance of the next two Lacey heirs, cousins Julia and Richard. The cousins have been growing up together under the protection of Julia's mother and family, in the shadow of the blackened ruins of the Hall, and with little money and just each other for company - friends, rivals and secretly betrothed since childhood, their relationship is a tempestuous one. Although they are to inherit jointly, there is an old saying in the village that only one can be the favoured child, only one of them can have the mystical relationship with the land traditionally passed down to each generation, a connection with the land that can bring fertility and prosperity back to the Wideacre estate; in truth only one of them can be the true Lacey heir. I picked up this novel on a whim and am so glad I did. I used to read quite a lot of historical fiction and then gave them up when I found the plots were becoming quite thin and reedy, or too similar to each other. But now I've discovered Philippa Gregory I shall definitely be reading some more of her novels. There is nothing predictable about The Favoured Child. The historical background is superb (without being overly detailed) - the history does not intrude on the novel, it just adds to its richness and sense of drama. I'm looking forward to reading the final book of the trilogy, Meridon.
47 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
please, let's return to reality,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Favoured Child (Wideacre Trilogy 2) (Paperback)
I read this having first finished "The other Boylne girl" and loving it, but I warn prospective buyers who also enjoyed Gregory's much better known book that her earlier work is just not up to standard."The favoured child" starts off promisingly, with the kind of deep emotional writing that Gregory does so well, but after the first half of the book (which, by the way, seems far too long for the relatively simple story that unfolds) it descends into the kind of melodramatic, mournfully escapist claptrap that gives historical novels such a bad name. Isn't a story that involves incest, insanity and betrayle exciting enough without resorting to vague hints at magic and prophecy? In fact I found it a little patronising, as if Gregory thought we couldn't handle the idea that this sort of thing could happen in the real world. I was also irritated by the heroine's persistant refusal to grow a spine. Yes, I love my siblings too (not in the same way), but if they raped me, murdered my best friend and sabotaged my only chance at a loving relationship, I might not take their word as gospel. It's this absolute refusal to create rationally behaving characters that lets this (and other works of Gregory) down; without the witchcraft her work would be gritty and emotionally challenging. With it, her books will be constantly labled as "chick lit", inferior versions of what Johanna Harris does so well.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dispiriting novel from a usually engaging author,
By Bookish (Berkshire, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Favoured Child (Paperback)
Having been introduced to Philippa Gregory via the brilliant and compelling 'Other Boleyn Girl' I was keen to get my hands on as many of her other books as possible. So far so good until I started reading the Wildacre trilogy. The first title in the series was gripping albeit dominated by unlikeable characters and miserable plotlines of incest and murder! I began 'The Favoured Child' in the hope that with the villains of the first book out of the way it would be a little more light-hearted and hopeful. Nope, still thoroughly depressing! My biggest issue is how Julia, the 'heroine' of the story keeps harping on about how much she loves Richard despite the fact he is a bully, rapist and serial killer. I liked her much more in the Bath chapters and was hoping that she would develop into a stronger and more powerful force in Wildacre. Instead I became increasingly more irritated with her as the book went on.
The Wildacre Trilogy was written much earlier in PG's career and I would recommend sticking with her more recent books, particularly those based around the Tudors. I am as yet undecided about reading the third Wildacre novel, only because I want to know how it all ends.
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