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Book Review of Wideacre (Wideacre, Bk 1)

Wideacre (Wideacre, Bk 1)
23dollars avatar reviewed on + 432 more book reviews


WIDEACRE was the May 2013 pick in my local book club.

Yikes, yikes, yikes....Incest abounds! Beatrice Lacey will stop at nothing to secure her heritage and rule on high as the mistress of her beloved Wideacre estate in Georgian-era England.

As a long time reader of Philippa Gregory's books on the royals, I was shocked to read such excessive and explicit reveling in an incestuous sexual relationship! It really leaves you to wonder if this weren't written from experience. Or if perhaps the author herself isn't the product of such a relationship...I mean, seriously, who writes an incestuous bodice-ripper?!

This book left a bad taste in my mouth, because the incest is ROMANTICIZED, under the guise of Beatrice's narration.

Why couldn't Beatrice and Harry have been step-brother and sister instead of blood brother and sister?? And even if it were written that they were having a sexual relationship, why would an author think the reader would need to be repeatedly brought into the bedroom with them, reading such explicit details about the sex those two were constantly having? Why?

It was just plain creepy and disturbing. Period.

On a more positive note, the last 200 pages seemed to indicate that a good editor got her to cast a more negative light on the previous indulgence of all the romanticized sex Bea and Harry had been having (not to mention the BDSM thrown in for good measure!) and we got a lot of references to the relationship as being a beast, or monster. But that doesn't in any way make up for the over-indulgence of the first 3/4 of the book.

The last portion also features Beatrice's scheming to change the line of inheritance to the incestuous children she sired with her brother! And there were some good scenes of conversation about the wealthy and their treatment of the poor, and those were riveting. But Beatrice doesn't get anywhere near the due she should've gotten for all her 2 dimensional, murderous, evil, sick, twisted wickedness! LOL

This was not my idea of escapism and I didn't enjoy reading about a brother and sister having R rated sex for hundreds of pages. It was disgusting. D+