I absolutely loved this book. I don’t know what I had been expecting but I couldn’t get enough.

The character of Anne in Pride and Prejudice is so easily overlooked, and as the reader we are rooting for the heroine Elizabeth Bennet. This book definitely does her justice. I was pleasantly surprised to find that in building up the character of Anne, the author did not venture to pull down the character of Elizabeth. She was the same heroine she is described as being by Austen. I found this unusual, as authors of these type of novels usually do not allow any other women to be as strong as their central female character.

In fact, I found every single woman described in this novel to be multi layered and complex. They were al written incredibly well, which was incredibly refreshing. Even the men were written to have the ability to be kind and gracious. On some level I think this is the most unrealistic part of the novel, because it is almost entirely free of toxic masculinity. When Anne rejects a mans proposal, he does not get angry or force her or blackmail her. He simply accepts her choice.

I also loved the angle of Anne’s illness that the author gave her, and how she was able to overcome it. I thought this was a really intelligent way of opening up the character, and showed how this experience had shaped her.

I was surprised when it was revealed that Anne was queer, but then I think the author had been dropping hints throughout the novel that she then remarked upon (like how she had regarded Elizabeth). I think this was cleverly done, because it felt like the reader and Anne were discovering this together.

I really enjoyed this book, I couldn’t put it down and would definitely recommend it.

I loved this book! Retellings of Austen novels can sometimes be a little too try-hard, almost like the author is trying to BE Jane Austen rather than retell her works, but this couldn't be more different.

I also particularly loved the way Greeley took a character that is almost mocked in P&P for being sickly, and made her into a strong, modern woman.

This was a really interesting read. Having finished it, I can see why there's so much of a difference between the UK cover and the US one. Personally I prefer the US one, but while it suits the gothic overtones of the first half of the novel, it doesn't suit the second half, which is almost pure romance. In that case, the UK cover suits better. I can see where the publishers are struggling though, because the separate parts of this novel read almost as separate books. Mostly, I think Greeley did a fantastic job of balancing those two halves. The main thing that made it hard for me as a reader was that the transition was a little janky. It seemed an odd decision for it to be the biggest decision of the book, what the whole of the first section was working up to, and not to see it - it made the tonal whiplash that much harder to stomach, unfortunately. That said, the only thing that was going to hold it together was going to be the character, and Greeley made that work. It is the only thing that knocks it down from a five star read for me, because the rest was great. It's not going to be one that I can give to many of our more general readers, but there are a few gothic and romance fans out there who will absolutely love it, and for that reason alone I'm glad we have it in our repertoire.

The Heiress is a beautiful historical fiction tale that follows Anne de Bourgh, a side character from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Anne is the heir to her father’s estate and has spent much of her child under the influence of laudanum. From a young age she has been promised to her cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy. When Darcy’s engagement to Ms Elizabeth Bennett is announced Anne is cast aside and wonders what will become of her future. In order to escape the control of her mother Anne flees to London and takes up residence with her cousin John. Whilst there she shakes off the influence of her ‘medicine’ and takes her first steps into London society but will that be enough to allow her to take up the mantle of mistress of Rosings Park?

The Heiress is a really gorgeously written story, and one I was really intrigued by. I love the idea of following a side character from a well known story and I was eager to see where Greeley would take the story. The Heiress very much focuses on addiction and how Anne spends much of her life under the influence of laudanum. It was a really interesting subject but I felt the pacing was a little off in this story. We spend a large portion of the story following Anne in childhood where she lives in a cloudy haze. Her decision to stop taking the laudanum and subsequent withdrawal symptoms appeared to be over relatively quickly in comparison.

The story took me a little while to get into but I found myself particularly intrigued as Anne steps into society and begins to learn more about the world around her. I liked the relationship between Anne and Eliza, though the story did become a bit more romance focused that I was expecting. The ending of the story was really satisfying and I really liked the way that Molly Greeley wrapped everything up.

This well written tale is my first by Molly Greeley and while it wasn’t an absolute favourite I would be eager to try more from this author.

"All my life I had been dormant as a winter tree, waiting for a spring that never came."

The Heiress imagines a whole life story for Anne de Bourgh, a very minor character from the world of Pride and Prejudice (what should we call it? the Austenverse? the Darcyverse? There's probably already a name for it.). Anyway, Anne is the sickly daughter of the formidable Lady Catherine - intended by her mother to marry her cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy, but we all know how that turned out. She's also the heiress of Rosings Park, a huge country estate.

Given laudanum (tincture of opium) to stop her crying as a baby, Anne is dosed with it throughout her childhood and young adulthood, resulting in an existence - barely a life - which is dulled, even stupefied. Labelled as a frail and sickly creature, everyone agrees that she must be protected from any kind of excitement or exertion, her diet closely monitored, her activities severely restricted. It never seems to occur to anyone, least of all her family or her doctors, that it's the "medicine" - to which she is, of course, now unknowingly addicted - that is keeping her that way. Only her governess sees more clearly what is going on, but there is little she can do.

I found myself angrier than I expected at the half-life carelessly inflicted on Anne and the many wasted years. Molly Greeley writes excellently about how she experiences her existence - the torpor, the inability to engage, and at times the disturbing hallucinations.

The book takes the minor character of Anne de Bourgh and runs with it, imagining a story for her which both provides a shocking reason for her "sickly constitution" and follows her difficult journey to self-determination. It's a love story, too, but mainly it's the story of a woman painfully breaking out from the constraints imposed upon her, which in this case are even greater than for most women of the era, as Anne is oppressed not only socially but also chemically.

Major characters from Pride and Prejudice make occasional appearances (we do get a glimpse into the married life of Mr and Mrs Darcy, which is fun). However, you don't have to have read P&P to enjoy it, as the story stands alone, though a knowledge of the source material does provide an additional dimension.

I enjoyed this book tremendously - it's so well written, and the story so engaging, that it's hugely satisfying when Anne does manage to move her life forward, finding friends and allies, and discovering a world which has been kept from her. Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read it and to provide an unbiased review.

Anne de Bourgh never really emerges from the background of Pride and Prejudice, she is so overshadowed by her overbearing mother Lady Catherine. She is such a nonentity that I could not remember if she even spoke in the novel, but in this book she has found her voice.

The author imagines that Anne had been given laudanum as a baby to quiet her excessive crying, and that this continued throughout her early life, leaving her a dazed and withdrawn addict. This leap of imagination actually works very well with what little we see of Anne in the book.

Her journey out of this drugged state to a wider brighter world is one to delight in. I noticed a subtle use of colour in the book, where the more vivid colours only seem to be mentioned when she is escaping from the influence of the drug. Her achievements when she is free of the drug are small and credible. She is lacking in social skills, but has an enquiring mind, so blossoms when she makes her escape to London.

Lady Catherine retains the same recognisable character and failings, but she is allowed more depth and humanity. Attention is drawn early on to the fact that she called her daughter after her deceased sister which even in the book, hints at some more tender emotions.

Nothing earth-shattering happens in this book, but it creates a tender story for a minor character which does not take away anything from the original novel.

I had a copy of this book early through Netgalley

There have been many books recently which are written from the perspective of a more minor character in Pride and Prejudice and this is one of the better ones. The Heiress looks at the life of Anne de Bourg, the daughter of Lady Catherine, from her childhood onwards. Anne did not feature much in Pride and Prejudice except as a sickly figure in the background but her we learn more about her and her lonely life. Fed laudanum from when she was a baby she is addicted and is kept meet Re or less so prisoner by her own mother who controls her constantly. But as she gets older she begins to crave a different life for herself. This was a difficult book to read as you feel so sorry for Anne and I hated her mother but it was well written and faithful to the era it was written in. However it's quiet dark and not light heart hearted like the works of Jane Austen.

There's a whole tradition now of taking relatively minor characters from classic books and examining them anew. This book looks at Ann de Bourgh, Lizzie's limp and listless rival for Mr Darcy, daughter of Lady Catherine. We all know how that turns out.

Which leaves Ann to get on with her life. Which she does, with aplomb.

Molly Greeley gives a perfectly believable explanation for the listlessness, explores female relationships and power, and gives Ann her own love story.

I enjoyed this book very much. I know Pride and Prejudice pretty well, and this interdigitated with the original accurately, but added depth. Ann's backstory fits, her mother is exactly as we know her to be, and her post- P&P life is great. I was cheering her on.

Thank you, Netgalley.

Absolutely breathtaking! A rivoting, heart racing read for the modern austen reader. 10/10 read and a must recommendation!

I loved this book. It was so beautifully written and I found myself captured by the little known character from Pride and Prejudice Anne de Bourgh Darcy's sickly cousin. I loved seeing how how Anne progressed to being a someone addicted to laudanum to become a very capable, courageous woman. I loved it.

This was such and amazing book, giving life to a small character you find in Pride and Prejudice. I had just read P&P when I got the chance to read this, and I'm so glad I accepted. I love seeing stories when a character grows into herself, and this does just that as well as giving a very interesting backstory to Catherine de Bourgh, so if you liked Pride and Prejudice I think you'll definitely enjoy this book too.

In The Heiress, Molly Greeley takes a minor bit-character from Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride and Prejudice and gives her a life and voice all of her own.

As when Jean Rhys tells us the story of Bertha Rochester in Wide Sargasso Sea, here Greeley spins a new story with Anne de Bourgh as the heroine and retains the period and setting of the original story, whilst giving it her own style – not restricting herself to copying Austen’s prose.

I am familiar with Austen’s story of class and courtship (it is a favourite re-read!), and yet I confess to paying rarely a passing thought to poor, pale Anne… which the author clearly anticipates and reflects in the attitudes of the other characters to her protagonist too. Original Anne was merely a foil designed to highlight Lizzie Bennet’s vivacity, but Greeley’s Anne is struggling valiantly against repression from every front – maternal, societal and substance-related. The problem of opiate addiction is portrayed sensitively, yet starkly, as Anne fights her own urge to push the world away and buffer its highs and lows.

It was lovely to see familiar faces like Lizzie, Darcy and even Mr Collins and Lady Catherine – and to see them from a new perspective – but their fleeting appearances are not jarring to fans. Instead, the effect is like catching a glimpse of old friends whilst passing their windows: you are glad to see they are well, but too busy with other business to pause for long. That said, those old friends definitely don’t always show to at their best when viewed from the lonely sidelines.

There is some romance in the plot here but, while it provides a Sarah Waters-esque side plot, this is mainly a story of self-realisation and the quest for inner strength: a love story to independence and freedom. Watching Anne develop from languid and languishing, to alert and pro-active makes for a pleasant and diverting read, and adds a fresh depth of insight into an old, familiar tale.

One for Austen fans looking for additional context, or simply anyone who enjoys a strong character-driven story of self-growth.


'Rarely did anyone contradict my mother—even Papa, when he was alive, avoided confrontation with her unless it was truly necessary. In that moment, I thought Miss Bennet the most marvelous person I had ever met.
She did not seem to find me so marvelous, however. Civil enough when we were introduced, her notice of me devolved, over the course of her visits to Rosings, into arched eyebrows and a vaguely turned-up set to her mouth. It was obvious that something about me amused her greatly, and between her clear scorn of my frailty and Fitzwilliam’s utter disregard for my existence over the course of his visit, I felt as though I were sinking into a swamp of mortification, sludgy waters closing over my head and cutting off all air.'

– Molly Greeley, The Heiress

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

A rather lovely side novel to Pride and Prejudice which is a favoured classic. Anne de Bough was a sickly baby and prescribed laudanum to sooth her ills. As an adult, she remains taking the opium based medicine everyday unable to break free from its grip and also without a grip on reality.

This is until she makes a break from her mother’s care in the country and travels to her cousin’s house in London, here is finally able to wean herself off of the medicine that has held her back from her life.

A beautifully written book about Anne’s trials to fit into society that she has been on the outside of all her adult life, where she finds friendship and love in another young lady.

This complemented Pride and Prejudice really well, I would look forward to reading more by this author.

Anne De Bourgh was a small barely mentioned character in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice - she was Darcy’s sickly cousin that he was betrothed to from childhood. She is brought to life in this spectacular story. As a child she would cry relentlessly (probably now known as having colic) and was prescribed laudanum. This led to forced “medication” for all her life leaving her in a barely conscious, stupefied state. She is eventually shaken out of her stupor and flees to London to stay with her cousin, where she weens herself off the addictive laudanum. There, she is forced to discover the world anew and find her place in it.

This book touches on many difficult and modern themes even with the historical setting - child abuse, drug addiction, Münchausen syndrome, women’s rights and equality, as well as sexuality/homophobia. Anne isn’t likeable at first but her character development is remarkable. The other characters give me the morally grey complexity I love - even her mother. As much you deplore some of their actions, (and weakness/ineffectuality), a lot of their choices/decisions are determined by the times they live in. With hindsight and knowledge, we know how wrong their actions were and how they would be received now, but you can’t help but understand their rationale.

Anne is definitely the driving force of this story and you can’t help but root for her as she develops some gumption and is able to stand on her own two feet. She strives for happiness- regardless of what her family or society expect from her. That is a story that is inspirational in any age or time. The book is also very well written and lyrical. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 4.5/5 stars.

The first book I read for this roundup was The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley, a Pride and Prejudice spin-off that focuses on one of the book’s minor characters. In Pride and Prejudice, Anne de Bourgh rarely speaks and is referred to as having a “sickly constitution” and being “pale and sickly” in Elizabeth Bennett’s eyes. In The Heiress, the reasons behind this are explored in a novel the follows Anne’s life from cradle to grave with an LGBTQ twist.

The book is split into three parts, the first being set throughout Anne’s childhood through her twenties, all spent at her home – Rosings Park. As a baby, Anne is fussy and the family doctor prescribes laudanum drops (a potent combination of alcohol and opium) to soothe her. Very quickly, Anne develops what through modern eyes we recognize as an addiction to the substance, however, her family only see that her “illness” returns anytime she stops taking her drops resulting in their belief that she is inherently sickly and needs the drops twice daily, despite the obvious soporific effect they have on her. It is this heavily drugged Anne that Darcy and other characters come to know, leading them to believe her to be at best uninteresting and referring to her as “a doll”.

It is only as an adult that Anne begins to realize that perhaps her medication is doing more harm than good when one of the few people she is close to explains the concept of addiction to her from personal experience. At first, she refuses to believe it, but after a terrifying hallucination brought on by the laudanum, Anne makes a wild decision on instinct and escapes Rosings Park for London, knowing full well that her overbearing mother would never allow her to stop taking her drops and work through the withdrawals.

In London, Anne begins to recover from a lifetime of merely existing and begins to live a full life for the first time. She is astonished, as are many who knew her before, by her own capabilities now her mind and body are not permanently addled by the drug – finding herself enjoying novels, brisk walks, and the other diversions of London. One of her greatest pleasures is Eliza, a young woman who introduces her to the works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Soon, the pair forge an intimate lesbian relationship which they know they must hide from the world in order to retain their reputations but Anne also comes to realize that as the heiress to Rosings and one of the great estates of England, she must act to secure its future in a way that will make her happy.

This is a fantastic addendum to the Pride and Prejudice legacy that will make you see this very minor character in a whole new light. Anne is initially a character who engenders your sympathy as she is endlessly sidelined through no fault of her own, but as she awakens to her own abilities and becomes a powerful, opinionated woman of her own making, you cannot help but root for her. Her relationship with Eliza is often hard to read about because of the constraints the two women face due to the limited options available to women at the time, and the economic danger they would find themselves and their families in should their true feelings be revealed. I was also surprised at how detailed the sex scenes between them were, not because they were especially graphic compared with other romances, but because the entire first part of the book was written in a more traditional regency style, which made the sudden inclusion of a lesbian sex scene rather surprising!

Although I found the final chapter a little out of place, this was a fantastic and impressively feminist book. It made me want to pick up Pride and Prejudice again, and also to read the author’s other spin-off The Clergyman’s Wife which focuses on Charlotte Collins.

'The Heiress' is such a richly descriptive and poetic book that I never wanted it to end. I have rarely become so emotionally invested in a character and I will never forget this book. The characters are deep and really engaging and the settings are immersive and detailed. I would give it another star if I could.

With thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the digital arc of this book. All opinions expressed here are my own.

The Heiress by Molly Greeley is about Anne de Bourgh, a side character from Pride & Prejudice.

Anne de Bourgh is the chronically sick cousin and intended of Mr Darcy. She has been dosed with laudanum since infancy and lives in a shadowy world of sleep and imaginings. Anne eventually runs away from her mother and companion to the home of Colonel Fitzwilliam, another cousin. Here she manages to stop taking the laudanum and embrace life. As the heiress of her childhood home Anne needs to work out home to make this an actuality.

Overall I felt this book was well written, but slow. Even after Anne stopped the laudanum I felt the story had a sleepy quality. I feel she would have taken longer to get better, especially after nearly thirty years of medicating. I didn’t feel much connection to the characters, and even the relationship didn’t sit quite right. Hopefully others will find this a more enjoyable read.

3 stars.

Anne de Bourgh is the heiress to a large estate but she's always been a sickly child, how can she run the whole place. Luckily a husband has been lined up but what happens when he finds someone else. Its time for Anne to come into her own and find her way in life.

I wasn't sure if I would like this to begin with but I was quickly hooked. I generally prefer crime and thrillers but I'm starting to develop a taste for historical stories too. This was a really good read. I instantly liked Anne and I'm glad she stayed true to herself throughout the story. The ending was beautiful and finished the story just right. The plot is slow and steady but it fits with the time and the story. I like the romance that develops but it doesn't steal the story like some can. Anne is a strong character who comes into her own in the later stages of the book. An enjoyable read for fans of those times.

I’ve read several PRIDE AND PREJUDICE retelling and reworkings in recent years, usually focusing on the life and perspectives of a secondary character such as Kitty Bennett or Charlotte Lucas. THE HIERESS takes an even more unknown character, Anne de Bourgh, daughter of Lady Catherine and Darcy’s original intended.

The characters from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (the Darcys, Lady Catherine) make relatively brief appearances, but feel believable as their original selves. I don’t think fans of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE will be disappointed in the portrayals of the characters they enjoy.

As for THE HIERESS itself, the idea that Anne is so “weak” compared to her overbearing mother and boisterous Elizabeth Bennett is attributed to her being dosed with laudanum from infancy. This is an interesting take and one of the stronger points of the book, but it does make for a slow-paced beginning, as Anne has little agency and only brief moments of independence.

I enjoyed seeing Anne take control of her addiction, of her home and her life however, the way the story was paced made some of the more challenging aspects come across as probably too simple or convenient. I would have like to see her struggles, with taking control of her inheritance or some more troubles in facing down her mother, present more of a struggle or take more of a toll.

The story is well-written and has a style that is easy to read. The historical aspects felt authentic while keeping the story grounded and relatable to a modern reader.

Overall, THE HIERESS is a good piece of historical fiction, and a surprisingly easy read. It has just enough of the characters we know to be intriguing but stands all on its own as a story, weaving in new elements such as addiction, feminism, and lesbianism.

This story was quite slow during the first part but increased in pace when Anne de Bourgh arrived in London. What I did enjoy was seeing Anne come into her own, making her own decisions and taking control of her life. Previously, her mother and doctor had kept her drugged on laudanum, so she was often sleepy and not fully functioning. Whilst in London, Anne discovered something about herself. I was glad that eventually she received a happy ending. I received a copy and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.