Rottenheart by Kat Dunn

Rottenheart is a gothic horror novel from Kat Dunn, whose Hungerstone reworked the vampire tale Carmilla. This time she turns to Hamlet: a sapphic, gender-swapped retelling of the great revenge tragedy, set in the England of 1898.

Odette and her beloved Cecilia have grown up mostly left to themselves, roaming between a grand house in Hampstead and the old, brooding Herne House in Suffolk. Then Odette's mother, the artist Lydia, sickens and dies for no reason anyone can name. Her cold aunt Claudine takes over the household and, before long, becomes Odette's stepmother, while her father shuts himself away. Lost in grief, Odette realises her mother has not really left. And Lydia wants revenge.

An adult gothic horror of grief, madness and mothers and daughters, for readers of the author's own Hungerstone and of T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead.

'A darkly intoxicating and fierce sapphic retelling of Hamlet, filled with longing, rage, and grief.' Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb

'Hauntingly brilliant.' Jennifer Saint