A considerable wave of hype has grown around Victorian Psycho. Well before it hit bookstore shelves, Virginia Feito’s follow-up to her hit debut (Mrs. March) was set to be adapted into a Hollywood film starring Thomasin McKenzie and Margaret Qualley, cementing it as a horror story we’ll be discussing for quite some time.
And, happily, there’s good reason to keep talking about Victorian Psycho, 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.
The “psycho” of the title is Winnifred Notty, a young woman who’s taken a post as a governess in a stuffy, shadowy old manor house in Yorkshire, a setting full of all the requisite repression and strange fascinations of the Victorian era. As Winnifred narrates the story with a mixture of black-hearted wit and misanthropic glee, we learn that she has plenty of strange fascinations of her own, many of them springing from an unhappy childhood that taught her to survive and to make her own rules. Now, with Christmas fast approaching, Winnifred’s way of life is about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting Pounds family, and no one is safe.
Fittingly, Winnifred’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 Winnifred’s inner turmoil, and blends that with the polished Victorian intricacy of writers like Henry James and Charles Dickens. We learn about the jealousy and rage inherent in Mrs. Pounds; the lecherous curiosity of Mr. Pounds; Winnifred’s young charges, Andrew and Drusilla, who are tiny monstrosities in their own right; and, of course, the darker side of the servants stationed throughout the labyrinthine home. Through Winnifred’s eyes, we see all of these elements quickly stacking together, a delicate house of cards primed not merely to tumble, but to burst into flame.
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.
