Philippa Gregory's first novel and first in the bestselling Wideacre trilogy. A compelling tale of passion and intrigue set in the eighteenth century. From the author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover. 'If it was the way of the world that girls left home, then the world would have to change. I would never change.' Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the eighteenth century she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others. Sexual and wilful, she believes that the only way to achieve control over Wideacre is through a series of horrible crimes, and no-one escapes the consequences of her need to possess the land. Sweeping, passionate, unique: 'Wideacre' is the novel which brought Philippa Gregory to bestselling fame and is the first of the trilogy which continued with 'The Favoured Child' and concluded with 'Meridon'.