Rottenheart
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Pub Date Oct 13 2026 | Archive Date Oct 20 2026
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Description
From the bestselling author of Hungerstone, an intoxicating and chilling gothic horror novel that reimagines Hamlet with a seductive sapphic twist—and where the only thing more dangerous than a family secret is a mother's revenge.
Revenge me. For I am murdered . . .
Odette and her best friend, Cecilia, grow up between two grand homes, one in Hampstead and one in Suffolk, the ancient and imposing Herne House. Odette’s mother, Lydia, is almost parasitic in her neediness, but despite her, Odette and Cecilia come of age together—free to roam, to learn, and to love. When Lydia inexplicably sickens and dies, a dark veil falls. Odette’s father retreats to his study, while her aunt—the cold and cruel Claudine—increasingly takes charge of the household. Lost in grief and spiraling into madness, Odette disappears into the shadows, leaving Cecilia alone and with her affections tested. As Claudine is announced as Odette’s new stepmother, the girls reckon with this final betrayal, and a sinister presence awakens. To her horror, Odette realizes that her mother never truly left. She now haunts the manor, ready to drag long- held secrets into the light and exact revenge against those who thought her dead and gone. A visceral tale of grief and madness, Rottenheart exhumes the heart of Hamlet to tell a fearless queer love story laced with an unforgettable haunting, asking whether we can truly outrun our suffering, or if we are forever indebted to the vengeful dead.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781638934653 |
| PRICE | $28.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 320 |
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 130 members
Featured Reviews
Clara G, Bookseller
Sapphic, gothic, and wonderfully Victorian, Kat Dunn’s Rottenheart is maybe my favorite Hamlet adaption to date.
In the rain-soaked Victorian England of Dunn’s novel, Hamlet and Ophelia become Odette and Cecilia, two young women who have fallen in love over seven years of close companionship. When Odette’s artist mother dies of a sudden illness after her estranged sister arrives, her ghost haunts Odette’s every waking hour, begging for vengeance.
Cecilia is the perfect interpretation of an Ophelia character while straying just enough from the text. She is just as cunning as she is optimistic and loyal, willing to stop at nothing in chase of her dream life with Odette. Odette is a fantastically moody, mad, melancholic Hamlet figure without being too annoying or self-pitying. The alternating perspectives of the novel help with this as well: we are not stuck for too long in either of their heads.
It’s not just a Hamlet adaption, however, as Dunn writes in her letter for booksellers, it’s a novel about mothers. In the ways that we love and yearn for their attention but hate it at the same time, the ways that all of our relationships with our mothers are so different from each other, and the ways that each mother can’t help but see themselves in their children.
It’s also a novel rich with foreshadowing, English literary references, and prose so fantastic I wish I could put a quote in my review. Honestly, one of my top books of 2026. Thanks to NetGalley and Zando for the ARC!
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