Anne de Bourgh, the chronically sick cousin of Mr Darcy, has been medicated with laudanum since she was a baby. She initially goes through life half-drugged and in the shade of her domineering mother, until she runs away to the London home of her other cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. There Anne stops taking the laudanum and sees that there is a world out there, that as the heir of Rosings, is open to her.

Anne is a shadowy figure in Pride & Prejudice - both in the book and adaptations. The author of The Heiress has taken slim source material and written an intriguing book which includes a lesbian romance. The character of Anne develops in a believable way, but I felt the few instances the reader sees of Mrs Darcy (nee Bennett) didn't ring quite true with the character from the original. The book tackles the issue of dependence on laudanum which was fairly common in Victorian England. I thought it was handled quite well here, but I wondered if it would have taken much longer to fully be free of its effects after taking it for so long. Overall, I enjoyed reading it, it was rather slow at times, but the author pulled it round and the ending was suitably poignant.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

I am not a real Jane Austen fan, but I know her books, of course. That's why I was not reading this book as a part of the world, but as a stand-alone having some known names included. And it could transport me in a new world, it could show me new things and it was very readable.
First of all I really liked the descriptions of Laudanum addiction and how it was integrated into the book. I completely could understand the mother's worries and actions even though I would never do it (but we are in the 21th century now). This kind of realtionship between a mother and a daughter was well depicted and shows the problems of the "production of a heir" and caring for a family in those times.
The depiction of the world was also well done, it was intriguing to follow the emancipation of a girl, in whose case nobody had ever expected anything of her. It is such a great delight to see, how characters develop and at the same time stay themselves with their own fears and restraints.
The relationship content was no roblem for me, and I am very satisfied that it played an important role in the book, but was not a kind of voyeurism that sometimes occurs. It was a naturally integrated part of the story, which showed many different facets and simply belonged.
I can higly recommend this book!

This is a great book for fans of Pride and Prejudice but could just as easily be read as a standalone historical fiction novel. Taking one of the typically ignored characters from the classic novel, The Heiress tells the story of Anne de Bourgh, daughter of Lady Catherine, from a young girl right through all the key moments of her lifetime.

Beginning as a vulnerable, over-protected and suppressed young girl we follow Anne as she grows up and escapes the life carved out for her to follow her dreams and heart and find her confidence to take over as owner of Rosings. On her journey she discovers her sexuality and falls in love which was beautifully and believably portrayed.

The setting and peripheral characters felt very true to P&P, but the main characters of the original novel remain largely in the background, which works to the novel's advantage in many ways as it avoids depicting them in a way which may jarr with a reader's perception of those characters from the original novel. However, in some instances, this decision didn't quite work, e.g. Mr Collins is mentioned just a couple of times which felt odd given his persistent connection to Lady Catherine in P&P.

Anne is an endearing heroine and I thoroughly enjoyed following her journey and coming of age story. This was a really easy to read book and had a fast moving and engaging plot to keep my interest throughout.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

I liked this story and I liked Anne (even if I don't remember her character in Pride&Prejudice).
It's a gentle paced book that tells the story of a woman, of how she overcomes her addition and the prejudice of society.
An entertaining and engrossing story, well thought characters and a vivid historical background.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh was prescribed laudanum to quieten her and has been given the opium-heavy syrup ever since, on account of her continuing ill health. While Lady Catherine is outraged when Darcy chooses not to marry her daughter, Anne barely even notices. But little by little, she comes to see that what she has always been told is an affliction of nature might in fact be one of nurture - and one, therefore, that she can beat. At the age of twenty eight she finally throws away her laudanum and seeks refuge at the London home of her cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Suddenly wide awake to the world but utterly unprepared, Anne must forge a new identity among those who have never seen the real her - including herself.

A well written slower paced book, which was well written & is a spin off of Pride & Prejudice. I did wonder how I would take to the book & I must admit I enjoyed it . The author had done her research & it showed in this captivating book. I particularly loved how Anne grew throughout the book & finally taking a stand & living away from her mother’s influence.
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

An entertaining snapshot of life in Jane Austen's England for an unmarried woman coping with the constraints of society and a domineering mother. This means that Anne's life is narrow and restricted and as she is shielded from any form of stimulation and medicated with laudanum her days drift by without purpose.
I understand this book is based on a minor character in Pride and Prejudice, it has been many many years since I read this and I could not recall this character but it made no difference to my enjoyment so anyone with no knowledge of that book can still engage with this one.
The reader relates to Anne as she tells her story and rejoices when she begins to reclaim control of her life and discover what new experiences are available to her.
I enjoyed reading this and was intrigued as to how it would end, my only criticism was around three quarters of the way through it lost a little impetus and became too wordy in places but the momentum did pick up again.

The Heiress by Molly Greeley
This is the fascinating story of the heiress of Rosings Park: Anne de Bourgh, a minor character in Pride and Prejudice, takes centre stage in this novel. We learn that Anne, a sickly baby, has been betrothed to her cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy since birth. Her formidable mother Catherine cannot bear her child’s persistent crying as a baby and when the local doctor prescribes laudanum to placate the baby she embraces his diagnosis that Anne is a delicate child who should be shielded from every aspect of life.
Deadened by laudanum Anne encounters a governess who tries, within the constraints placed upon her by Anne’s mother, to develop her charge’s talents. Her father is mostly absent during her life and when he dies suddenly Anne is provoked into making some changes in her life.
Although this book is similar in style to Jane Austen’s it touches on subjects which Austen would not have tackled for instance the terrible withdrawal symptoms experienced when being weaned off the laudanum to which she had become addicted. The plot is reminiscent of Sarah Waters in its handling of the love between two women. There are some well-drawn characters in the novel and whilst some engender powerful feelings of dislike, Catherine, others promote fondness such as John Darcy and Eliza. The late flowering of Anne under the tutelage of Eliza is fascinating to read and her introduction to the works of Mary Wollstonecraft and the broadening of her horizons from the limited confines of Rosings Park is a delight.
I thoroughly recommend this novel for it celebrates Austen whilst remaining highly original and inventive. I would like to thank the author, the publishers and Net Galley for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

My thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Heiress’ by Molly Greeley in exchange for an honest review.

The cover advices that this is the ‘untold life of Miss Anne de Bourgh’ as well as posing the question: ‘Privileged. Protected. Poisoned?’.

Miss Anne de Bourgh was a minor character in ‘Pride and ‘Prejudice’, the sickly daughter of the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She and Mr. Darcy were cousins and their mothers had decided when they were infants that they would marry. Aside from the fact that first cousins marrying is a bit iffy, Mr. Darcy had no interest in the match.

Miss Anne de Bourgh certainly did not have the lively wit of Miss Elizabeth Bennet and was very much dominated by her mother. Yet, she is an heiress and as her father’s estate is not entailed on his death she will become a wealthy woman in her own right. Though if she marries she would lose control of her considerable fortune.

As with a number of novels written in tribute to the works of Jane Austen, ‘The Heiress’ expands upon the life of a minor character. Molly Greeley introduces complications to Anne’s life. Firstly, that as an infant she had been prescribed laudanum and remains addicted to it. Secondly, that she is attracted to women. In order to realise her dreams of independence with the attendant freedom to pursue the love she chooses, Anne has to free herself from the grip of the drug and regain her health. Oh, and of course to escape the tight grip of Lady Catherine!

While this was a pleasant enough novel, I just didn’t find it particularly engaging. Even though Anne was telling her own story I found her account curiously impersonal and lacking in energy.

Certainly Anne faced major challenges in freeing herself from the addiction and the dominance of her mother, though in the end the solutions to both seemed “super easy, barely an inconvenience”; seriously undermining the novel’s pacing, as well as the dramatic tension and character development.

Overall, while it had its moments, ‘The Heiress’ just didn’t wow me.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

I enjoyed this immensely. One to stay up late reading as Anne’s journey is unconventional and she not only has her addiction to battle but society prejudice. I’ve read other fan fiction novels (to Conan Doyle and the Brontes) and so far have found them inventive, well researched and created with genuine love and passion for the genre. These fan fiction novels have to stand up to huge criticism as they have to be given approval by the hundreds of other fans and so you can be assured they are accurate in their references to both period and the original novels.

My Rating
5 stars

Another Austen inspired novel which features a very minor character from Pride and Prejudice; Anne de Bourgh. Anne was a sickly and peevish baby and the doctor prescribed laudanum to help her sleep. This became an on-going treatment and Anne becomes an observer of, rather than participant in, her own life. She is completely passive and detached from the real world. It's not until the death of her father and the discovery of a letter from a loved governess that she begins to rouse herself. She heads to London away from the laudanum and her over-bearing mother, to find a normal existence.

This is a really well written and graceful book which explores some themes I suspect would make Austen blanch; drug withdrawal, sexual awakening and homophobia. We follow Anne's journey a docile young girt to an independent and capable woman.

There is nothing fast paced about The Heiress but it builds beautifully and there are some clever twists in the plot. I would highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a different take on pride and prejudice but of that era

ann is a fussy baby and the doctor prescribed laudanum and so started the journey that became the first half of anns life...

a gentle paced book that was intriguing in itself and kept me reading as i did want to know how it all panned out...how different life was back then...downstairs and upstairs and even though the rich had it easier..they were still expected to marry well and the husbands had all the say and could go as they pleased...thank god its not the same anymore...

but if you are on the look out for a gentle slow paced read this is the book for you

As a fussy baby, Anne de Burghs doctor prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium - heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed fron sunshine and frrsh air, the pale slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitwilliam Darcy. It was understood that Anne and Darcy and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcydoes not love or want Anne.

The book is based on Jane Austens character Anne de Burgh, daughter of the infamous lady Catherine. The novel follows Anne through her life. Anne had been described laudanum as an infant to stop her crying and she quickly becomes addicted to it. But when Anne was twenty eight, she escapes to her cousins house and overcomes her addiction. A minor character from the original book eventually take charge of her own destiny. This is an enjoyable read.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book. Gasping, almost crying, constantly telling my partner about it over breakfast, lunch, tea, in the car kind of loved this book. I am an avid lover of Pride and Prejudice, and always found myself wondering about Anne so...to see this book was an absolute dream come true. And to read this book, well that was better than perfection. It's always fascinated me how readily opiates were given, and this book showed the exact reason why it's bad.

We have Anne's illness, her overbearing mother, her difficult life that's too easy in the worst way. And then, as she gets herself clean...something we've wondered about the whole book turns out to be true and Anne not only becomes an paragon of strength and inner resilience, but also a lesbian icon. I'm not sure I've ever rooted for a character this much in my life. From start to finish I was like 'come on Anne!'. When she brought herself to London, I was so happy for her. When she poured away her medicine, I audibly gasped with a grin. When she made a friend I was truly happy, as if by that point we were friends ourselves, and when it turned romantic...it's been a long time since I've shipped something that much and I was thrilled to see it come to fruition!

Familiar characters return, but a nice touch from the author was to feature the prominent ones rarely and focus on some of the lesser known family members, their lives, their dynamics. It didn't become an odd sequel, but instead fit perfectly within the current material and felt true to the original, whilst being fresh and new. The writing style was wonderful, the book flowed magnificently - with the drug addled sections feeling a bit slower and softer and rounded around the edges without being boring or badly paced and the second half reflecting the new speed in Anne's life - again - without feeling too fast, or badly paced. The ending had me almost weeping, though I did have to start the chapter again as I was a touch confused, but it quickly made sense.

This book is a masterpiece, absolutely spellbinding and had me gripped from start to finish. I want a penguin clothbound version to go with the section I have earmarked for my actual Austen novels (when I finally complete the set. It honestly reads like poetry, absolutely beautiful from start to finish.

I've read a couple of Pride and Prejudice sequels or spin offs but none as surprising or as excellent as this one, which tells the story of Anne de Bourgh, who in the original was a peripheral character with no lines and no detail beyond her sickly constitution. In this book, Anne comes alive, although at first she is alive only in a hazy sense, drugged by laudanum from infanthood so that she grows up addicted, stuck in a drugged-up half life that she and everyone around her believes is by her natural weakness rather than the product of the drops she takes daily.

When she finally takes control of her body and her life, heading to London to assert her independence from her Mother and her addiction, she really comes into her own. This is a story of self-discovery, a sapphic romance, a late coming-of-age novel and an exploration of womanhood in a rigid society. I genuinely loved it, and would 100% recommend it to both fans of Pride and Prejudice, or just fans of historically-set fiction in general.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-ARC of this in exchange for my honest review

This was a 5 star for me.
I found the writing style deceptive. Initially, I thought I was not sure of the story and that I may stop reading soon, but soon never came. The storyline and the style snuck up on me. I couldn’t put the book down.
The mother. the doctor. The laudanum. The father and the relatives. Society and its values. Mary Wollstonecroft. Schools and female education. And so much more were covered in this book – implicit in the storyline and packed into what seemed initially, on the surface, to be a standard typical historical romance. One that turned out to be so atypical and so empathetically written. A quiet stunner of a book.

The Heiress by Molly Greeley is the wonderfully engaging and entertaining story of Anne de Bourgh , a name that will be familiar to fans of Jane Austen and her wonderful book Pride and Prejudice. The Anne we are introduced to in the original book is described as being pale, sickly, small, thin and cross due to her poor health, and she lives in the shadow of her redoubtable mother, the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. In this book, the author explores the causes of that ill health , an addiction to laudanum which has been prescribed for her since infancy, and her mother's belief that she is to frail to live anything but the most cossetted and sheltered of lives. The first inclination that Anne has of the potential that lies within is through her friendship with a tutor, and when her father dies leaving Rosings Estate in her hands, Anne finally has the means and the opportunity to escape from her mother's clutches , conquer her addiction and experience the social scene in London. This may prove to be the greatest challenge of all, especially once Anne begins to realise that she prefers the companionship of women.

I really enjoyed this book, as a fan of Austen I am always drawn to other stories that are related to her works, and I thought the idea of telling Anne's story was certainly an interesting one. I liked what the author did with the character, it was faithful to the brief appearances she made in Pride and Prejudice, but expanded in a believable and interesting way. I do wish there had been more of a show down between Anne and her mother, that part of the story felt a little rushed, and I think Austen's Catherine de Bourgh would have put up more of a fight.
The writing is beautiful, the author has a very skilled turn of phrase, almost poetic at times , and this combined with the story kept me turning the pages.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I was interested to read this book as I love Jane Austen, and this sounded like an opportunity to explore a minor character in more depth. However I was very disappointed by this rather boring book. The characters were very two-dimensional, and any link to Pride and Prejudice seemed entirely manufactured. I definitely wouldn't recommend this book.

This was an good idea, taking a minor character, Anne de Bourgh, from Pride and Prejudice , and weaving the story of her life beyond that novel.

I felt that the novel failed to take off. I did not get a great sense of the historical period or much of a flavour of early nineteenth century England. While the notion of Anne being addicted to laudanum was appropriate, it did not lead anywhere. Anne's attraction to other women did not either surprise or shock. As we know it was perfectly feasible that a woman of independent means could live life as she wished outside conventional relationships at that time.

i thought it was all rather dull . muted and tame. What should have been looked at more was that the oppression of Anne was completely down to her mother, as Austen makes clear;and that it was only by breaking with powerful matriarchal authority that Anne could become her own person. Lady Catherine's Apologia-that she could not cope with a screaming child- is risible and indefensible in a woman of her class a, time and resources. She is a controller, and cannot cope with that which she cannot tame to her will, hence her inability to come to terms with Elizabeth in the original book.

Had the author tackled this interesting issue of oppression of a woman by a woman head on, this might have been a more challenging read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the digital review copy.

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. I actually quite liked this book, liked the storyline and the characters. Would recommend

I enjoyed this take of a minor character from Pride and Prejudice. Anne de Bourg is a cousin of Darcy and had been betrothed to him from birth. However, as we know, Darcy marries Elizabeth. Anne is not bothered because she is addicted to laudanum. Eventually Anne takes control of her own destiny - this second part has a more compelling storyline but I also loved the dreamy prose of the laudanum years. Very good story.