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Victorian Psycho: A Novel

SOON TO BE A FEATURE FILM FROM A24 STARRING MARGARET QUALLEY AND THOMASIN MCKENZIE

"This book will be the bloody belle of the 2025 literary ball." (Oprah Daily)
Most Anticipated Books of 2025: Vulture, Oprah Daily, Polygon, Reader's Digest, Lit Hub, CrimeReads, The Stacks, LibraryReads, Paste
Best Books of the Month: Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Goodreads, Gizmodo, Book Riot, The A.V. Club, Apple Books, Amazon
The American Booksellers Association's #1 Indie Next Great Read! (Feb 2025)
A Matty Maggiacomo Book Club Selection

“Simmering with rage, propulsive and laugh out loud funny, Victorian Psycho speaks profoundly of horror both within and without us.” —Catriona Ward

From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Virginia Feito’s Mrs. March was hailed as “a brilliant debut . . . [by] a writer who keeps pace with the grandees she invokes” (Sarah Ditum, Guardian)—from Daphne Du Maurier and Shirley Jackson to Patricia Highsmith. Now, Feito returns with her “silver-polish sentences and her eerie psychological acumen” (Constance Grady, Vox) to unleash an entirely new antihero on us all.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.

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Victorian Psycho: A Novel

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Virginia Feito's latest is a sharp and surreal stay at Ensor House alongside a psychotic governess with an insatiable appetite. Creepy, campy and crackling with energy, you'll read this in a single sitting.

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Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631498633
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	02/04/2025
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	4,225
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of 1

Victorian England, Villains and Psychopaths: A Q&A with Virginia Feito

Virginia Feito’s latest is a sharp and surreal stay at Ensor House alongside a psychotic governess with an insatiable appetite. Creepy, campy and crackling with energy — you’ll read this book in a single sitting. Virginia sat down with blog writer Isabelle McConville to chat all about Victorian England, villains, psychopaths, A24 and more in […]

11/11/2024
Feito (Mrs. March) unspools a bold and mordant gothic novel about a murderous governess. Winifred Knotty was born in Victorian England with an “evil soul,” according to her mother. Winifred’s stepfather, a reverend, regularly performed exorcisms on her as a girl, for macabre behavior such as collecting the corpses of murdered babies in their small village and arranging them on her shelves (“Good, now, I am cured,” she said disingenuously after one such exorcism). Eventually, she finds employment as a governess for the Pounds family at their estate on the moors, where she tells the two children that her previous charges “dropped dead.” According the book’s front matter, the Poundses don’t have long to live (“In three months everyone in this house will be dead,” reads a caption under a drawing of an estate; “Death everywhere. Death in the river, in the corpses floating upstream and down,” begins the preface). The novel’s perverse thrill is in slowly uncovering how and why the Poundses meet their fate. Along the way, Feito provides readers with searing glimpses of Winifred’s derangement (she bites into a raw chicken in front of the cook and pretends to be a ghost haunting the house). Fans of psychological horror will be enthralled. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Those looking for a good revenge horror story should check out Virginia Feito's Victorian Psycho . . . [which] promises a surprising and entertaining spin on the Victorian era."

Screen Rant - Amanda Mullen

"Some novels pull no punches. What Victorian Psycho pulls is a great handful of intestines, which it then runs gleefully away with."

Stephen Graham Jones

"[Victorian Psycho] lives up to its literary namesakes, delivering unrelenting gore and shock in the vein of those earlier novels by Bret Easton Ellis and Robert Bloch.... Feito’s 2021 debut novel, Mrs. March, revealed her skill for eking out dread and terror from the mundane life of a woman past her prime.... What’s consistent between the books is Feito’s macabre sense of humor. [Feito] has moved on from the pitiably self-conscious Mrs. March to the defiant, hallucinatory confidence of Winifred Notty: both deliciously unlikable in their own ways, both a pleasure to root for in their misguided travails."

Jac Jemc

"Tagged as dark humour, satire, and horror, this is a study of the psychopathy of human nature and it works brilliantly."

Historical Novel Society - Fiona Allison

"Victorian Psycho is that rare, extraordinary book that both delivers and completely confounds all your expectations. . . . By drawing from the roots of the gothic, Virginia Feito seems to have invented an entirely new kind of storytelling. From the first to the last line, this novel is nothing less than a masterpiece."

Catriona Ward

"I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, but the protagonist of this book—the living embodiment of #nofilter—was just so compelling, I couldn’t stop reading. This woman’s deeds are truly heinous, and the book pulls no punches in describing them. At the same time, I couldn’t help rooting for her because, deep down, I felt the source of her ire deserved everything he got. Bonkers as this book is, it provided some fantastic commentary on womanhood and sexuality and desire."

Feminist Book Club - Steph Auteri

"Winifred might be the smartest, wittiest and most brutal psychopath to grace the pages of a comedy of manners that turns into a horror show — all in an age rife with repression."

Los Angeles Times - Bethanne Patrick

"Sleek, deadly and paced like a runaway train, Feito’s novel is an absolutely delectable mashup of horror sensibilities, and one of 2025’s must-read genre releases. ...At just 200 pages, Victorian Psycho is lean, lithe and clear in its purpose and its violent delights. It’s a book you can easily finish in a single sitting, yet Feito’s prose is so dense with meaning and subtlety that you may just pick it right back up again."

starred review BookPage

"A deliciously devious new book."

People

"Relentlessly moody, in the best possible way, Victorian Psycho asks how anyone could live sanely in a time so systemically cruel. Atmospheric, funny, bloody as hell—I finished it in one sitting."

Ainslie Hogarth

"I have been filleted and flayed and generally violated by this novella. I couldn’t recommend it enough. That being said, Victorian Psycho, is a book that demands silence, not because there’s nothing to discuss (that is far, far from the truth) but because you need to bear the full brunt for yourself. Whilst it seems linear, a plot that can only feasibly end in one way (the way that it does) it’s anything but predictable. It’s audacious and malicious, from page 1, to the inevitable denouement, which we are dragged toward kicking and screaming and writhing. I will be sending my therapy bill to 4th Estate books, along with my heart-felt thanks for my copy. Those of you in the U S of A can devour this one as of the 4th of February, and in the UK, it hits shelves on the 13th. Clear your schedule, and leave yourself at least a week on either side."

FanFiAddict - George Dunn

"Her bold approach to storytelling peels back the layers of Victorian society, exposing its contradictions, power struggles, and hidden darkness. Through her unapologetic portrayal of a cold-blooded female psychopath, Feito questions whether societal pressures and repression can truly explain such violent behavior—or if, perhaps, the madness runs much deeper."

Litro Magazine - Eric Akoto

"A considerable wave of hype has grown around Victorian Psycho.... Happily, there’s good reason to keep talking about [it], well beyond a movie deal. Sleek, deadly and paced like a runaway train, Feito’s novel is an absolutely delectable mashup of horror sensibilities, and one of 2025’s must-read genre releases.... Fittingly, Winifred’s voice is the star of this particular show. Feito draws on her novel’s namesake, Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, when it comes to portraying Winifred’s inner turmoil, and blends that with the polished Victorian intricacy of writers like Henry James and Charles Dickens.... At just 200 pages, Victorian Psycho is lean, lithe and clear in its purpose and its violent delights. It’s a book you can easily finish in a single sitting, yet Feito’s prose is so dense with meaning and subtlety that you may just pick it right back up again. The novel whistles along at a breakneck pace but also immerses you deeply in everything, from the tapestries adorning the house’s walls to the joys of Victorian mummy unwrappings. You won’t want to leave Winnifred’s dark world.... Perfect for fans of CJ Leede’s Maeve Fly and Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw alike, Victorian Psycho is one of those books you won’t just read. You’ll get lost in it, and you’ll be delighted by what you find in its sardonic embrace."

starred review Bookpage

"Virginia Feito distills all the 19th century horror tropes you can remember into one witty and addictive mad-governess tale."

Boston Globe - Kate Tuttle

"This book will be the bloody belle of the 2025 literary ball; preorder now!"

Oprah Daily

"Despite her inclinations to bite, pet, and stab, [Winifred] really is just a girl. A dead-eyed, gnashing psychopath, sure, but still just a girl. Juxtaposed to this hidden danger is her undeniable wit. It makes every repulsive detail read as eloquent. The results are conflicting and addictive, for the satirical commentary never dims on even the goriest exploits. Jane Austen would probably gasp in her grave for such a comparison, but the similarities are there with the remarks on societal stations, the humor, and the precise delivery. It's wicked historical literature at its most morbid."

Fangoria

"Deliciously macabre!"

New York Times Book Review: an Editors’ Choice

"Riotous, devilishly clever, and deliciously appalling, Victorian Psycho is flat-out brilliant. No one is spared (not even us) from Winifred’s wrathful whims while Virginia Feito deftly presents the case that Winifred is being quite reasonable. Long live Winifred! She is the antihero this, or any other, century deserves."

Paul Tremblay

"Grotesque, wildly funny, and utterly weird, this novel will have you hooked as the new governess enters the dysfunctional halls of Ensor’s House. Feito takes the Gothic and tames it like a misbehaving charge."

Underground Books, Carrollton, GA - Joshua Lambie

★ 12/13/2024
A murderous woman dropped into a gothic novel is a recipe for delightfully disturbing and grimly comedic bloodshed. Winifred Notty is the new governess at Ensor House, in charge of teaching and supervising children Drusilla and Andrew Pound, but Winifred is not a typical governess. She wanders the grounds at night barely clothed, subtly torments the staff and her charges, and at times displays a violent imagination. The Pound family, caught up in their own troubles, don't seem to understand the depth of Winifred's depravity until one Christmas when she shows them all. Feito (Mrs. March) evokes classic gothic storytelling in her writing and in the book's layout, which creates juxtapositions between the disturbing acts Winifred commits. Readers come to know Winifred's terrifying fantasies (and her willingness to indulge them) , and when she finally snaps, and the body count rises exponentially, the horrors she commits feel like catharsis, as Feito has populated the novel with cruel and shallow upper-crust victims for her to dispatch. VERDICT Fans of gothic literature who don't mind gruesome deaths will savor watching Winifred go beyond simply eating the rich in this seemingly by-the-book gothic story that subverts some of the genre's conventions. It already has a film adaptation in the works.—James Gardner

Library Journal

2024-10-07
A twisted, bloodthirsty governess celebrates Christmas with her new employers.
Set in a stylized Victorian England, Feito’s very different follow-up to the eerie, sophisticatedMrs. March (2021) is not for the faint of heart. It begins with the image of a manor, captioned: “In three months everyone in this house will be dead.” Indeed they will, in scenes of gore, dismemberment, and gleeful murderous abandon, observed with wry detachment by the titular psycho herself. To wit: “I spit out the blood and see, as so often happens when one slits an infant’s carotid artery, the baby is dead.” Then, a new paragraph: “I have not thought this through.” Thinking it through seems unlikely to have made much of a difference, though, as she packs the corpse up for mailing to a Benedictine nunnery in Lancashire with a note: “Sorry, here’s another one.” This misanthropic, sociopathic, compulsively wisecracking character, Winifred Notty of Hopefernon, claims upon her arrival at Ensor House to have hopes of keeping what she calls her “Darkness” in check. “Observing my clean, respectable image in the glass I open my mouth wide in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the Darkness within me, to spy it peeking out of me, slick and muscular and toothed, like a lamprey swallowed whole.” But the awful Pounds family—pervy father, pathetic mother, drippy Drusilla, and her stupid little brother Andrew—along with the annoying household staff and a gaggle of repellent Christmas Day guests make restraint impossible. Miss Notty has a secret to reveal—and havoc to wreak.
Where ironic horror and horrific irony meet, this unbridled madhouse of a novel dazzles like a bloody jewel.

Kirkus Reviews