Victorian Psycho follows Winifred Notty, employed as a governess to take care of two horrible children in a horrible household of horrible people, as she descends further and further into a murderous psychotic rage. From the opening pages, I knew I would love this. And I did. Every word of it. It is weird, wild, deliciously macabre, funny and constantly surprising.

From the start, as she approaches and arrives at Ensor House, we realise that Winifred is not your typical Victorian governess.

"Mrs Able opens a short, solitary door. She gestures to it. As I walk inside, the skirt of my dress brushes her limp hand, which she withdraws instantly. Mrs Able, I muse, is a woman who has never held a penis."

Feito takes inspiration from Victorian (and earlier) fiction and non-fiction. There are echoes of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë in the dinner-table conversation, Ann Radcliffe gothic overtones and the bloody violence of sensationalist novels and contemporary newspaper accounts.

The writing is wonderful, from the measured tones that build a vivid picture of the stiflingly decorous Victorian upper class household that one might expect, building gradually to a frenzy as Winifred descends into feral, gory murder.

Victorian Psycho is wild, exhilarating and bloody delicious. I cannot recommend it highly enough, if you've the stomach for it.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher, Fourth Estate, for providing an ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest no matter how I acquire the book.

I absolutely loved this! It was dark, funny, gory and wonderful and I ate it up. Winnifred was a fantastic protagonist and I loved the small ways her psychotic nature would manifest in the early part. The Pound family and their social circle were grotesque in all the best ways and the action builds to a glorious climax. Overall this was an utterly bonkers and fabulous read and I highly recommend it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Wow! Virginia Feito has done it again! What a fun, dark novella of a truly Victorian pyscho. I loved watching Winifred get away with murder once again and again while she spirals into a deep frenzy, right up until Christmas.

Wow, that was quite something. If you're the sort of person who needs to like your main character, turn away now because Winifred is not remotely likeable, there's no Dexter-ish charm here. Winifred is strange, twisted, prone to fantasies and odd impulses. She also gets away with murder. A lot. Told solely from her point of view her brief, blood-soaked tenure as governess to the Pounds children reads like Dickens and Tarantino got together and decided to write a novel.

All the evils of the Victorian period are laid bare - baby farms, everyday items laced with poison, child neglect, social rigidity and moralistic hypocrisy all go into creating the monster that is Winifred. An absorbing, compelling read not for the faint of heart.

In ‘Mrs March’ Virginia Feito gave us a just a taster of how well she writes about an unravelling woman. But in ‘Victorian Psycho’, the protagonist is clearly beyond unravelled, and verging on the utterly bonkers, from the outset.
Winnifred Notty, new governess to the entitled and bratty Andrew and Drusilla Pounds, is a Tsunami of Psychotic and I love her! Such a fantastic character.
There are strong hints that she’s not the usual demure Victorian Governor - Mary Poppins she’s definitely not. The quote from Jake the Dog in Adventure Time, immediately came to mind - “I’m not cute! I’ll mess you up!”
This book is a darkly humorous gore-fest. Winnifred Notty has a seemingly endless amount of ways to inflict terror, damage and pain. Nevertheless, you can’t help but be on her side as she endures her work at Esnor House for the entitled, pompous and hideous Pounds family .
A solid Five Stars!

On paper, this was the perfect book for me - Gothic, historical, horror, comedy. In execution, I found it ever so slightly lacking. While I loved the setting, the humour, and the writing itself, I didn’t find the ‘reveal’ to be that satisfactory, and felt that the final act came too quickly. I would absolutely read what Virginia Feito reads next, however, and look forward to reading Mrs March at some point! 3.25/5

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Victorian Psycho has the right amount of shock factor, gore and tension. The Victorian setting adds a layer of eeriness to the novel as well. The protagonist is funny, psychotic and well developed.

A really good all rounder for horror lovers. I have nothing bad to say about this.

What can I say about Victorian Psycho other than it is completely insane and a wild ride of twists and turns in a dark Victorian setting.
Brilliant characters with depth to even the minor players and a storyline that kept me guessing throughout

Sure to be the hit of the summer this novel is a blaze of light in its genre. Deftly written, gripping and well plotted this should be the read of the summer.

Possible contender for the most nuts thing I’ll read in 2025, this was exquisitely written – the beauty of the prose contrasting sharply with the grotesquery of the subject matter. The main character is exactly as the title suggests – someone so far on the antisocial personality disorder spectrum that she could rightly be called a psychopath complete with ticks and desires most people would find abhorrent and a complete lack of empathy and remorse. That said, there is method in her madness and it’s an interesting journey to follow her on – an interesting killing spree at least. There are moments of ghoulish dark humour and buried beneath the gore, a meditation on whether or not we all have something monstrous withing and whether women are subjected to a different expected standard than men. This pulls no punches and delights in its slasher style narrative – read in one sitting.

That title! That cover! With my background in Victorian literature and love of all things Gothic, I knew Victorian Psycho would be right up my alley.

I think the best way to describe Victorian Psycho is ‘batshit fucking crazy’. It’s a short book but it packs a serious punch, immedietly drawing us into Notty’s world and mind. Through the madness, Feito writes a refreshing take on Victorian society, class, and the Victorian family.

I think there’s a lot of places in which this book could have fallen flat, but it came together and worked so well. The main reason for this is Notty’s wonderful, totally compelling voice. She’s completely unhinged, but also funny, witty, and extremely charismatic. The decision to write this book in a first person POV was absolutely the correct one – I don’t think it would have worked without the view into Notty’s head.

Victorian Psycho is one for the ‘weird books for weird people’ crowd (like me). This most certainly not be for everyone, but the right reader will love this messed up, compelling, gory tale.

Do not read if you can't stomach violence. Irreverent, weird, ridiculous. If you're a reader who can't get over illogical happenings (I get it), this one probably won't be for you but it worked for me.

It's dark, gruesome, and intense. With that said, it's sometimes difficult to follow the plot. Also, if you're like me and look for someone to relate to, you won't find it here.

A grim and compelling gothic story about a governess wreaking havoc at a stately home where she has been employed to teach the two children, Andrew and Drusilla. Written very much in the style of a Victorian novel, it is quick to read and guesomely engaging.

With thanks to the author, NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

This is such a hard book to review - it's so dark and gruesome, disturbing and odd, Gothic and horrific, yet also strangely compelling. I found that I couldn't put it down, even as I was being pulled into the twisted workings of the protagonist's mind.

The novel follows Winifred Notty as she arrives at Ensor House, the home of the fairly odious Pounds family. Her role is to be governess to the children, Andrew and Drusilla, although her unconventional bedtime stories and tendency towards brutality are at first dismissed as merely eccentricities compared to their previous governesses. As she begins to draw the attention of the master of the house, strange things begin to happen - someone defaces the family portraits and even the staff start to go missing... When guests begin to arrive for Christmas celebrations, it becomes obvious that Winifred is going to continue on the path of destruction that led her to Ensor House in the first place.

Wow, this book is so dark - we are literally taken inside the mind of a killer whose twisted way of looking at the world means that no-one around her is safe. Her thoughts and actions are presented in graphic detail and her total lack of remorse or empathy is chilling for the reader - although her voice is also often humorous and knowing and so not totally alienating for the reader. The book often focused on the macabre and grotesque - this is a book where description is frequently visceral and repellent. There's lots of blood, bodily function, gorging on stomach-churning things, decay and rot, filth and death. Yes, it's disgusting, but also shocking and interesting and unlike much I've read before.

As is evident from the above, Winifred isn't a character we grow to love - this isn't a book for anyone who needs to like the characters in what they read. In fact, every one of the characters is awful in their own way. Indeed, we are shown a procession of greed and lust and any of the other deadly sins you can name - and it's probably best you don't get attached to any of the characters anyway as they don't have long life expectancies!

The writing is clever, although references to 'fall' for autumn jarred a little within a story set within Victorian England - for an otherwise immersive book, I found this tricky to skim over.

So, if you're of a strong disposition then there's much to get caught up in within the world of 'Victorian Psycho' - I'm not sure it is a wholly enjoyable experience, but it's one you won't forget!

I absolutely adored this book, it was everything I wanted it to be and more. Feito’s debut novel Mrs March was one of my top books of the year when I read it and I knew it was going to be hard to follow, but somehow she topped it.

Victorian Psycho is what it says on the tin - it’s about a governess called Winifred Notty who is a complete psychopath à la Patrick Bateman - the reference to ‘American Psycho’ in the title being no coincidence. Whilst Victorian Psycho doesn’t critically compare to Ellis’s masterpiece, Feito knows exactly what she was doing with this novel and its dry humour, body horror and strong narration creates the absolutely perfect novel. The book - weirdly, even though it is set pre-1980s - knows that American Psycho is its unbeaten predecessor and doesn’t try to emulate or copy in a way which comes across lazy, awkward or cheesy (like the recent Maeve Fly). Feito preserves the wit, charm and dark humour that makes American Psycho such a well written novel, and Victorian Psycho triumphs in exactly the same way.

The novel takes the ‘unhinged woman’ trope and timeses it by 100. Instead of Winifred being a woman we see ourselves in and someone we can cheer on, she is just as monstrous as any male killer or psychopath. The book doesn’t want to explore female rage safely, it explores it in all its true horror and unkempt blind rage, even to the detriment of other woman in the world. Winifred doesn’t care about anyone but herself - she is a narcissist and completely devoid of emotion, killing people sometimes just because they happen to accidentally be in her way. It is interesting to explore how with-in the boundaries of such a strict Victorian society, where woman were even more controlled than they are now, such rage could be even more explosive and terrifying than we are used to in the modern female rage novel.

Victorian Psycho was an absolute pleasure to read. I was confused by the tone in the first chapter, reading the phrase about her breasts jiggling in her corset and thinking “why was that even necessary?” But then the more I read I realised that this is all Winifred’s captivating and manipulative personality, and she absolutely shines off the page. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys horror or disturbing books, or for anyone who is a fan of Ellis and is looking for a writer who truly pays homage to his legacy. Feito is so clever in how she maintains her own style and ideas whilst letting her readers know that he has been a massive influence in her work, and I’m truly here for it!

Winifred Notley has urges that she struggles to control. An unwanted child, she is forced to make her living as a governess and she comes to Ensor House in that role. As Winifred tries to control herself, her actions and imagination swirl in an unhealthy atmosphere.
Did I like this book? No, I can't say that I did but despite myself I found myself reading on. It's not for me but there is lots to admire in the writing within a fairly narrow genre.

A 5 star read!!

Miss Notty is one of my favourite protagonists of recent years...never have I routed for someone quite so unhinged. As immoral as she is there is a wonder to her, a sense of whimsy and I think this is what draws me to her. Her quick wit and surefire vision that what she is doing is simply a mistake like dropping coffee on yourself or is completely justifiable.

SPOILER* - The scene with the baby swap will stick with me, the dark humour of it all truly bubbles up to the surface in this section and that is what shines for me in this book.

With short snappy chapters, you will fly through this. Or if you prefer an audiobook the narrator for this does a stunning job.

Highly Highly Recommend for a romp into the unhinged.

Wow wow wow. I was expecting something dark and twisted but this is next level!
I must admit I am partial to a Victorian novel with a governess as protagonist.
If Jane eyre had been more like Fred mr Rochester would’ve definitely had a different ending ….

The story fell flat for me. The concept was interesting and I was really excited for it. However, the story didn't fulfill that interest