VICTORIAN PSYCHO by Virginia Feito – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Published by Liveright on February 4 2025
Genres: Adult, Gothic, Horror
Pages: 208
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A grim, bloody delight with pitch perfect black humor, Victorian Psycho will make you gasp and laugh in the same breath.

“Mother first tried to kill me when I was thirteen months old. ‘You learned to walk so fast,’ she told me later. ‘I thought I might as well stop you while I could.’”

Virginia Feito has just rocketed to the top of my “must read” author list, mostly because I have never read a book quite like Victorian Psycho. This is the story of a female serial killer who is out for revenge, and it’s shocking, funny and emotional, sometimes all three of those in the same paragraph. The main character is a frumpy woman named Winifred Notty (and don’t think for a second that the author chose her last name by accident!) who tells her story in a no nonsense voice and has perfectly good reasons for every heinous thing she does. I imagine this would also be excellent in audio format, since Winifred’s a larger-than-life character with a commanding voice. I was both horrified and awed by her and couldn’t believe what was coming out of her mouth. Because of that, I’ll be highlighting more quotes than usual in the this review, I just couldn’t resist!

Winifred Notty has been hired by Mr. and Mrs. Pounds as a governess for their two children, Andrew and Drusilla. Ensor House is a cold, bleak mansion in the town of Grim Wolds, and once she arrives, she’s tasked with the care of the children, who seem to dislike her immediately. But Winifred is made of stern stuff, as the reader learns very quickly, and she isn’t afraid of two little children.

As Christmas approaches and the Pounds welcome their guests to the house for the holidays, Winifred sets her grim plan in motion. No one in Ensor House is safe…

Winifred is one of the most deranged characters I’ve ever met, and yet throughout the story we get glimpses of her terrible childhood, which made her feel more human and, dare I say, evoked a feeling of sympathy. She doesn’t seem to have a filter at all, an odd way for a woman to act in Victorian society, and she says whatever is on her mind, shocking not only the family members but all the other servants as well. Her descriptive observations of everything around her are full of menace:

“Leaves are strewn across the grounds in hues of bile and blood.”

Or:

“The guests take to their dancing while I serve myself some wassail from a large silver bowl on a corner table, disturbing the bronzed apples and lemon slices that bob like drowned corpses on the surface.”

Or:

“‘I am Andrew Pounds,’ announces the little master. Rusted freckles sprinkle his strikingly long forehead like the indiscriminate spray of blood from a slit throat.”

The reader understands that Winifred has indeed seen the spray of blood from a slit throat herself, otherwise how would she know? Feito’s writing is full of examples like this, perfect similes that unsettle the reader again and again, yet how can you not applaud such gleefully horrifying writing?

The story has a wonderfully immersive Victorian feel to it as well, almost as if it were written during the time of Dickens or the Bronte sisters. Feito hasn’t just written a story that takes place in Victorian London, she’s magically transported herself and her readers into Winifred’s grim, bloody life. The sights and smells are so vividly described, along with lush descriptions of food, and later, blood.

My favorite thing about the story, though, is its perfectly done black humor. Winifred, who is a true sociopath, makes calm observations about the people around her as she’s slaughtering them. There’s one memorable scene involving a baby that I had to read twice, I couldn’t believe the author went there. But she did, and that scene was funny, believe it or not. 

I wasn’t sure if Feito would be able to pull off a believable ending, but she managed to surprise me yet again with a perfectly horrifying finale. Not surprisingly, Victorian Psycho is being made into a movie (in preproduction right now), so I recommend getting your hands on a copy of the book first. 

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy. Quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof and may differ in the final version of the book.