The Favored Child: A Novel [Paperback]

From #1New York Timesbestselling author and “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory comes the thrilling sequel to theNew York TimesbestsellerWideacreas the once-great Lacey estate is restored to its former grandeur—though not without cost.

The Wideacre estate is bankrupt. The villagers are living in poverty and formerly stunning hall is a smoke-blackened ruin. But, in the Dower House nearby, two children are being raised in protected innocence.

Equal claimants to the estate, rivals for the love of the village, they are tied by a secret childhood betrothal but forbidden to marry. Only one can be the favored child—only one can inherit the magical understanding between the land and the Lacey family that can make the Sussex village grow green again. Only one can be Beatrice Lacey’s true heir. Sensual, gripping, and mystical,The Favored Childirresistibly sweeps the reader into a world of secrets, betrayals, and power in this revolutionary period of English history.Chapter 1

I am an old woman now. In my heart I am an old woman, tired, and ready for my death. But when I was a child, I was a girl on Wideacre. A girl who knew everything, and yet knew nothing. A girl who could see the past all around as she walked on the land -- dimly, like firelit smoke. And could see the future in bright glimpses -- like moonlight through storm-torn clouds. The unstoppable hints of past and future molded my childhood like drips of water on a tortuous limestone stalactite that grows and grows into a strange racked shape, knowing nothing.

Oh! I know now. I have been a fool. I was a fool over and over in the years when I learned to be a woman. But I am no fool now. I had to shed the shell of lies and half-truths like a summertime adder coming out of a sloughed skin. I had to scrape the scales of lies off my very eyes so that I blinked in the strong light of the truth at last; lƒ½