A review by lezreadalot
The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley

4.0

“This is a great season for first experiences, Ms. de Bourgh.”

This is pretty high up there on my list of Pride and Prejudice retellings/inspired works, though to be fair I haven't read a whole heaping tonne of them. It's been described as slow by a lot of people, especially in the first half, and I guess that's not inaccurate? But I didn't find it so at all. I was wholly engrossed the entire time, even when the story took meandering turns, and got dreamy and metaphorical. It's not the easiest thing, to take a minor background character and give her heart and purpose and personality, make her very sympathetic while still remaining true to and fair to all the original main characters. 

This is the story of the wealthy heiress, Anne de Bourgh, and it explains her sickliness from the original novel as a dependence upon laudanum that was introduced to her at childhood. We follow her through the drugged-up haze of her childhood and into her late twenties and early thirties, when she manages to come into her own. This would not be the book it is if it weren't for the writing; super lush and expressive and raw. There's something very meaty about the prose, heavy and consequential, even in the slower areas. I always felt very close to and connected to Anne, very sympathetic with her. A lot of the book deals with her realisation of her sexuality, and I just adored how it was written about. Again, there was something very physical and raw but very beautiful about the way she described her attraction to women. Seeing prose like that in historical fiction just feels so wonderful, because it turns queerness and queer desire into this lovely thing. Anne is sensible to the fact that her desires aren't commonplace, but she soon comes to a place where she refuses to compromise, refuses to take any less than what she deserves just because her tastes don't align with society. And I loved that. There are some super meaningful relationships here besides the romantic one (which I adored). I especially loved the push and pull with her mother, and all her bids for independence.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Ell Potter and it was wonderful! It's probably the reason why I didn't find the beginning as slow-moving as others did. Her narration drew me in very easily, and I adored her voice. This was such a beautifully written piece of fiction, and the best thing about it is that you can enjoy it thoroughly even if you've never read Pride and Prejudice. I definitely recommend it highly.

My heart was entangled in lines of ink and strands of bright hair. I could not seem to free it.