Revenge is a tricky one. We know we shouldn’t want to do it—it’s basically the first cousin of wrath, the fourth deadly sin, and it’s been drummed into us since kindergarten that if someone hits us, we don’t hit them back. But most people with a normal range of emotions have, at some point, even if fleetingly, toyed with a dark fantasy of getting even. But most of us have the good sense to leave it there: In our heads, a fantasy we will never live out.
Not so for Taylor Bishop, the protagonist of my debut novel The Sunday Girl, and not so for characters in the following list of books, all of whom are women in search of revenge. Some are sociopaths with an axe to grind, but others, like Taylor, are just normal women who only have tools like The Art of War and their wits at their disposal. But what they all have in common is that they’ve officially had enough—and they will go to any lengths to get even and get back at the people who’ve hurt them. So, for anyone out there who is feeling a bit vengeful and would like to live out their revenge vicariously, this list is for you.
The Arrangement by Robyn Harding
Natalie is a young art student living in New York City, struggling to make ends meet when a glossy friend from university makes a suggestion: Why doesn’t she sign up to be a sugar-baby? Sex doesn’t have to be involved unless she wants it to be. At first, Natalie is dubious, but soon she meets Gabe and it feels like she’s living out a scene from Pretty Woman… That is, until she’s making her one call from a police station, whispering: “I killed someone.”
Alex by Pierre Le Maitre
A beautiful young woman has been abducted, brutally beaten, and kept in an abandoned warehouse where she is suspended from the ceiling in a wooden cage. It’s too small for her to move and her abductor has one aim: To watch her die. There are no leads, no suspects and nobody knows who she is. Yet Commandant Camille Verhoeven has to find her before it’s too late. You might think this sounds like your average story of a beautiful young woman who’s saved in the nick of time by a canny policeman. You’d be deathly wrong. Alex is a lot of things, but a damsel in distress is not one of them.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Yes, you’ve probably heard of it or seen the movie. But if you haven’t read it yet, please do. I love this book for so many reasons: Lisbeth’s extraordinarily imaginative (and cathartic) revenge via a tattoo gun is a definite highlight, but so is her character. She is a brilliant, deeply wounded, complicated anti-heroine. Aside from everything else this book as to offer, I recommend anyone read it just for her.
The Silent Wife by A.S.A Harrison
This was A.S.A Harrison’s first and last book. It details in startling clarity the demise of a long-term relationship, bringing in all the usual suspects like adultery, money and, you know, hit men. The Silent Wife questions how far people can grow apart while still living side by side and how far we would go to protect our own interests if pushed to our limits.
My Sister The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
What would you do if every time you got a new boyfriend, your sister killed him? There’s only one correct answer to that question, for this protagonist at least: Help her get rid of the body, of course. Multi-layered, morbidly hilarious, and brilliantly written, this novel gives new meaning to the phrase “blood is thicker than water.” (It’s harder to clean, too.) And while there are many potential motives for the sister’s murders, I for one see it as a case of revenge. But I’ll leave you to pick up the book yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yōko Ogawa
How does one even write about this book? It’s macabre, haunting and original. At first it appears to be a set of dark short stories – a writer whose land lady’s husband is found buried in the garden, a sociopathic hospital secretary, the death of a tiger. But every story links to another until every loose end has been tied up. As the title suggests, revenge runs through this, female revenge specifically, but it’s more than that. It’s a meditation on grief, writing, life, love and probably a lot of other things I haven’t thought of at the time of writing this.
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing.
They’ve been married for fifteen years, they have two children and the live in the suburbs… it sounds perfect and vanilla, doesn’t it? Still, perhaps every couple seems a bit flavorless until you scratch the surface. I don’t want to ruin this for you if you haven’t read it, but let’s just say all hobbies are not created equal and there are some people you absolutely shouldn’t upset.
