Wideacre estate is bankrupt, the villagers are living in poverty and Wideacre hall is a smoke-blackened ruin.

But in the Dower House two children are being raised in protected innocence. Equal claimants to the inheritance of Wideacre, rivals for the love of the village, they are tied by a secret childhood betrothal but forbidden to marry.

Only one can be the favoured child. Only one can inherit the magical undrestanding 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, sometimes mystical, The Favoured Child sweeps the reader irresistably into the England of the 1790s and a revolutionary period in English history. This rich and dramatic novel continues the saga of the Lacey family started in Philippa Gregory’s bestselling first novel Wideacre.