Book Review – Victorian Psycho by Virgina Fieto

Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor house to be governess to Drusilla and Andrew. She’s determined to play the role perfectly, bedtime stories play games but being confined within Ensor House and subjected to the petty whims of the Pounds family Winifred finds herself struggling to stifle her violent compulsions. Patience, all she needs is patience Christmas is coming and such special gifts planned for the family, shockingly special gifts.

This is one of the best things I read in 2025, the whole novel is just one thing after another and by the end of it you are slightly left feeling what the hell did I just read and ist’t that just the best feeling in the world particularly when you’re reading horror.

This book takes no prisoners and holds nothing back and is also surprisingly funny (or I need to be worried). We live in Winifred Notty’s head for this story and my god what a place it is to be. She is a fantastic character, it’s immediately established that Winifred is a psychopath and is totally unhinged and that she also likes to sink her teeth into things she maybe shouldn’t occasionally. There are some fun nods to gothic tropes in some of the supporting characters, many of whom are fantastically terrible in some ordinary way at least according to Winifred.

This story is also very funny, its pitch black humour and occasionally gross and blood drips from every page, its wonderfully done all the little observations of the Pounds and the friends the tiny jabs at the ridiculousness of the upper and lower classes its a great black comedy.

I absolutely adored this book, I am dying to see the movie adaptation thats been announced what they’re going to do with it I cannot wait to see. A fantastic gothic horror story I can’t wait to read again.