Title: Estella’s Revenge

Author: Barbara Havelocke

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Canelo Hera

Publication Date: 17th October 2024 (paperback)

Rating: 4.5/5

Cover:

Summary:

You know Miss Havisham.

The world’s most famous jilted bride.

This is her daughter’s story.

Raised in the darkness of Satis House where the clocks never tick, the beautiful Estella is bred to hate men and to keep her heart cold as the grave.

She knows she doesn’t feel things quite like other people do but is this just the result of her strange upbringing?

As she watches the brutal treatment of women around her, hatred hardens into a core of vengeance and when she finds herself married to the abusive Drummle, she is forced to make a deadly choice:

Should she embrace the darkness within her and exact her revenge?

Review:

I haven’t read Great Expectations for a very long time but I remember being particularly intrigued by the character of Estella, so I was curious to find out what this take on her would be like. This is less a retelling of Great Expectations and more like a different perspective of it. It works beautifully. Havelocke has created a tale that feels respectful to Dickens’ work but which also very much has its own style and feel. The writing is excellent – evocative of the time and place and also incredibly atmospheric. I honestly loved the dark, gothic and sharp tone of the whole book.

Estella herself is a fascinating character to follow. She is not what one would call exactly likeable but I found her complex, smart and enigmatically twisted in a way that feels completely understandable considering the way she was raised. The narrative is split between the present and her past at Satis House. It works very well for the story and offers context to the way things play out. Estella’s Revenge is a gothic, evocative and fabulously dark book which I would absolutely recommend whether you have read Great Expectations or not. 

★★★★.5

Thank you so much to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for inviting me on this tour and organising it. I kindly received a copy of the book from the publisher. My review is entirely my own honest opinion.

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