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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?
Estella’s Revenge is a stunningly original, gripping Gothic read, perfect for fans of Stacey Halls, Eve Chase and Jessie Burton.
About Barbara Copperthwaite / Barbara Havelocke
Barbara is an international bestselling author, whose books have topped Amazon and Kobo, and also appeared on the USA Today chart. Her psychological thrillers are: INVISIBLE, FLOWERS FOR THE DEAD, THE DARKEST LIES, HER LAST SECRET, THE PERFECT FRIEND, and THE GIRL IN THE MISSING POSTER.
She also writes gothic historical thrillers as Barbara Havelocke. ESTELLA'S REVENGE is the first in an exciting new series, published on 9 May, 2024, but available for preorder now.
Her writing career started in journalism. For over twenty years Barbara worked for national magazines and newspapers, talking to the real victims of crime - and also those who have carried those crimes out. Her fiction reflects this: she creates realistic, complex characters and explores the emotional impact of difficult situations, from a family torn apart by the secrets they keep from one another, to a woman who can't get past the disappearance of her twin twenty-five years earlier.
Her first book, Invisible, was ‘totally gripping, and scarily believable’ according to Bella magazine. Its success was followed by Flowers For The Dead, which was the Sunday Mirror’s Choice Read, beating Lee Child’s latest offering. ‘Will have you looking over your shoulder and under your bed... Original, gripping, with a deep psychological impact,’ its review read.
With Bookouture, she has published The Darkest Lies, Her Last Secret, The Perfect Friend, and The Girl in the Missing Poster. The successful collaboration has seen her hit the Number One spot on Amazon and Kobo, be a No1 bestselling audiobook (Psychological Thriller) in Audible America, as well as feature on the USA Today bestseller chart.
In an exciting change of genre, she is also now writing as BARBARA HAVELOCKE. As Havelocke, she brings her psychological insight into complex characters, and skills at building dark, tense stories, to historical fiction. Estella's Revenge is published by Hera, and will be available as hardback and ebook in May 2024, and paperback in Autumn 2024. You can preorder it from all good book outlets.
Estella is a described by Hera as “a dazzlingly imagined origins story of the famously cold-hearted Estella, reared from childhood in a house of darkness by Miss Havisham, one of the most iconic literary figures of all time".
Barbara is currently working on book two in the historical fiction series, as well as on her seventh contemporary psychological thriller. Her new psych thriller will be published by Bookouture in Summer 2025.
When not writing feverishly at her home in Birmingham, UK, Barbara is often found walking her two dogs, Scamp and Buddy, or hiding behind a camera to take wildlife photographs which she then loves to use as inspiration for drawings.
24 June, 1994 – Nineteen-year-old Leila Hawkins runs from her father’s birthday party into the stormy night wearing her sister Stella’s long red coat. Some say she was crying, others swear they saw her get into a passing car. Nobody ever saw her again.
Present – This time every year, on the anniversary of that fateful night, Stella decorates the small seaside town she grew up in with pictures of her beautiful missing sister. But after twenty-five years, is it even worth hoping someone will come forward? Perhaps the upcoming documentary will spark people’s memories by reuniting all the guests who were there the night Leila went missing.
As old friends gather and long-buried secrets begin to surface, the last thing Stella ever expects is a direct response from someone claiming they took Leila. They want private details of Stella’s life in return for answers. But as the true events of the night of the party play out once again, who is lying? And who is next?
He sees her. The one. The sunglasses don’t fool anyone, she is clearly upset, her nose and lips swollen from crying. They are two lost souls and he knows his love can help her. After all, she is not the first girl he has followed home…
Adam is the perfect boyfriend. He pays attention, he buys flowers. He knows everything about Laura and looks after her every need. He cooks, he cleans – he even does the dishes without being asked.
But Laura has never met Adam. Still grieving after a devastating car crash that killed her family, she’s forgetful and struggling to pull her life together. She’d be horrified to know the depth of this unsettling fantasy in which she is the star. But there’s no denying the chill she feels every time she finds another elaborate bouquet on her doorstep, or wakes in the night sensing she is not alone.
Adam has been watching her every move, and now it’s time to act. Except, there’s one little detail he’s missed: Laura has been watching him too.
After everything she’s been through, Laura’s ready to fight back and stop being the victim in her own life story. But in Adam’s world, there are no happy endings…
An unputdownable thriller guaranteed to have you sleeping with the light on and questioning everything you think you know about serial-killer thrillers!
She’ll do anything for you…
My name is Alex, and my world has been shattered.
My husband has left me.
My children won’t speak to me.
My friend Carrie is the only person I have.
She’s the only one I can trust to keep all my secrets.
She’d never do anything to let me down.
Would she?
Some secrets you can never tell.
Everyone thinks the Thomases are the perfect family: grand London house, gorgeous kids.
They don’t know wife Dominique is a paranoid wreck.
They don’t know husband Ben is trapped in a web of deceit.
They don’t know daughter Ruby lives in fear of the next abusive text.
But someone knows all their secrets.
Can the lies that bind them tear them apart?
A mother desperate for the truth. A daughter hiding a terrible secret.
Melanie Oak appeared to have the perfect life. Married to her childhood sweetheart, Jacob, the couple live with their beautiful, loving, teenage daughter, Beth, in a pretty village.
Nothing can shake her happiness - until the day that Beth goes missing and is discovered beaten almost to the point of death, her broken body lying in a freezing creek on the marshes near their home.
Consumed with grief, Melanie is determined to find her daughter’s attacker. Someone in the village must have seen something. Why won’t they talk?
As Melanie tries to piece together what happened to Beth, she discovers that her innocent teenager has been harbouring some dark secrets of her own. The truth may lie closer to home and put Melanie’s life in terrible danger…
THERE'S ONE VICTIM OF CRIME NO ONE NOTICES...
Something is wrong. With her marriage, with her husband, with her. But as she pours her heart out to her diary, it’s clear she doesn’t know what.
Until one explosive night she finds a possible answer.
Suddenly hated and vilified by everyone, she clings to her relationship – even while wondering if she really knows her husband at all...
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