Estella

The icily enigmatic anti-hero of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations tells her own story ... and changes the ending in this beguiling feminist take on a classic for readers of Pip Williams and Karen Brooks.

At just three years of age, Estella is taken from her mother, adopted by the wealthy but eccentric Miss Havisham and taught how to break men's hearts. Satis House is dark and oppressive and life with the vengeful Miss Havisham a confusion of contradictory lessons, but the kindness of the household cook and Estella's love of the nearby marshes bring her some joy. Forced to play with Pip, a local boy from a lowly background, Estella captivates his soul and breaks his heart, exactly as Miss Havisham has planned.

Years later, Estella returns from school in France as a young woman and is thrust into London society. There she meets Pip again, who has acquired an unknown benefactor and come into money. Miss Havisham recruits Pip to help find Estella a husband, much to her distress. She seems forever fated to be the plaything of others, locked into the destructive cycles her adoptive mother set in motion.

Estella is beautiful, headstrong, enigmatic - but who is she, really? Will she ever be able to break free from the constraints of society's expectations and her own childhood? Will Estella finally find a way to tell her own story?

This evocative and mesmerising retelling of Great Expectations sheds light on a little understood character in one of Dickens's most beloved novels.

About the Author

Kathy George was born in South Africa, and has since lived in Namibia, New Zealand, and Australia. A hopeless romantic, she fell in love with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier as a teenager, and includes Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations among her favourite books. She has worked as a legal assistant, but her true enthusiasm has always been for writing, and she holds an Masters of Fine Arts in Australian Gothic literature from Queensland University of Technology. Kathy lives in Brisbane and Sargasso is her first novel. Photo Credit: Anna Jacobson