Rating: 
Summary: The most ridiculous tripe I've ever read.
Review: I don't know which is more ludicrous: the main character maiming her lover in a man-trap, the main character's incestuous sado-masochistic relationship with her brother, her legless lover returning to do her in at the end, or the fact that I read this book all the way through. This was an airport buy, and I've never made a more sorry reading choice in my life; I spent ten hours on a flight from the U.S. to the U.K. wincing as I turned every punishing page. I've enjoyed other books by Ms. Gregory, but I certainly won't be finishing this trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: I despised her, yet couldn't stop reading
Review: If you're looking for a romance, keep looking: there's not a hint of romance here. If you're looking for a character study of a thoroughly despicable, yet endlessly fascinating woman, this is for you. Beatrice Lacey is like no one else--ambitious, grasping, manipulative, calculating, evil, and self-deluding. Yes, I despised her, yet kept reading to see just how far Beatrice would go in order to claim her family estate. A wonderfully detailed long read to get lost in.
Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: This book was so awful, I threw it away after reading the first few chapters. I highly recommend that you give it a pass.
Rating: 
Summary: A Dark, Twisted Tale
Review: This is the first period novel I've ever read. I bought Wideacre, The Favored Child and Meridon in a set at Border's Books & Music because they were on sale and I wanted something different from the usual Nora Roberts or Mary Higgins Clark that I always read.
Boy was this different! Halfway through the book, I had a strange foreboding feeling of what was to come. But I couldn't put it down! Everytime I was doing something else, my thoughts always jumped back to the book and not long after, I'd be reading it once more.
I would suggest this book to anyone who is looking to explore new genres. But reader beware. You won't be able to put it down until you've read the entire thing.
Rating:
Summary: Wideacre
Review: Yuck, Yuck and more Yuck. I think the author should see a psychiatrist if she found anything redeemable about this book.
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Summary: Scarlett O'Hara's Evil Twin
Review: You have heard of "Buyer Beware"? Well this would be "Book Beware" I picked this up as a beach read,it was so bad I felt I had to see it to the end if it could possibly redeem itsself...nope THANK GOD it fell in the ocean to spare me from finishing it! This book was horrible, it may have been made worse for me because I was expecting the normal Historical Romance story. This couldn't be farther from it. I don't want to give much away but definalty expect the unexpected.
Rating:
Summary: This is a 1-star rating because you can't give zero.
Review: I wish I had read the online reviews of this book rather than just the jacket cover. I thought I was buying a historical romance with an ambitious heroine who was passionate about her home. What I bought was a historical novel with an amoral heroine who becomes involved in a graphically described sister-brother incestous relationship. I'm so glad that I read the other reviews on Amazon and learned that the incest plot continues throughout the book. That's all I needed to know; 100 pages and I'm done. And I'll make sure not to buy another Philippa Gregory book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliantly Pagan
Review: What a curious and, ultimately, brilliant book. If you're looking for a traditional historical romance, you won't enjoy this. If you're looking for a richly imagined novel that draws on a deep knowledge of rural traditions and of the dark powers behind the pastoral ideal, then you will find this book utterly involving. Beatrice, the heroine, is maddeningly self-absorbed, but she is absolutely real in the way that pagan goddesses are real -- seductive, enchanting, terrifying, destructive. Her actions have consequences that are completely believable, unlike those of Scarlett O'Hara (to whom she's been compared). Her name in Latin means "she who blesses," and Gregory invests that fact with all possible irony. Gregory knows her stuff, both mythically and politically, and she offers a sharp, edgy portrait of just what the infant years of the Industrial Age meant to the English countryside. And, oh yes, there's plenty of sex (though not overly explicit) for those who like that sort of thing.
Rating: 
Summary: "Shocking" yet surprisingly dull
Review: While sharing many themes with "The Other Boleyn Girl," a book I thoroughly enjoyed, "Wideacre" lacks the sweep of historical events to pull it along. It strands its all-powerful heroine and her weak and dependents on the title estate and repeats the same cycle--a manipulative act, a crisis that risks exposure, a quick-thinking cover-up--over and over as the novel ploughs through 500 pages to its inevitable conclusion. Worse, she removes the heroine's only real adversary early in the action and doesn't bring him back until the bitter end. For a novel set in an era when conversation and language were so important, there is surprisingly little dialogue; Ms. Gregory fills the pages instead with repetitious, purple passages about the Power of the Land and the heroine's indestructible loveliness. I look forward to reading her other books, but will skip the sequels as they promise more of the same.
Rating:
Summary: Beatrice Lacey: the character I most love to hate
Review: If you thought Scarlett O'Hara was an immoral, nasty woman who would do anything to hold on to her family's land, you ain't seen nothing yet. Beatrice Lacey, the (anti)heroine of "Wideacre," is a thousand times worse...but she makes delightful reading.It's a shame the editorial review spoiled the important plot points, because I think they're even more deliciously awful when you come upon them by surprise. Every time you think you've finally got a handle on just how low Beatrice will stoop, she turns around and does something else even worse, brimming over with schemes that wouldn't ever occur to "normal" people. I had trouble putting the book down, and raced through the last few chapters, completely captivated and dying to find out what would happen next. A truly satisfying read. On a final note, I agree with previous reviewers who stated that this book shouldn't be filed in the romance category. While it does occasionally stray slightly into "bodice ripper" territory, you're not going to find hearts and flowers in this book.
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