by SarahWaters (Author)
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. For with the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class', the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. And as passions mount and frustration gathers, no one can foresee just how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be. This is vintage Sarah Waters: beautifully described with excruciating tension, real tenderness, believable characters, and surprises. It is above all, a wonderful, compelling story.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 576
Edition: 0
Publisher: Virago
Published: 28 Aug 2014
ISBN 10: 0349004587
ISBN 13: 9780349004587
Book Overview: The extraordinary bestselling author, who wrote three astonishing Victorian novels before moving to the 1940s with The Night Watch and The Little Stranger, now turns to the 1920s.
Prizes: Winner of Independent Bookshop Week Book Awards: Adult Book 2015. Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2016 and Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2015 and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015.
Fiction book of the year
This novel magnificently confirms [Sarah Waters's] status as an unsurpassed fictional recorder of vanished eras and hidden lives