The Paying Guests
Books | Fiction / Historical / General
3.2
(389)
Sarah Waters
The New York Times bestselling novel that has been called “a tour de force” (Wall Street Journal), “unputdownable” (The Washington Post), “a delicious hothouse of a novel” (USA Today), “effortless” (The Economist), “seductive” (Vanity Fair) and “pitch perfect” (Salon) “Superb, bewitching…Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey; this novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating” – NPR “One of the year’s most engrossing and suspenseful novels…a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending … Will keep you sleepless for three nights straight and leave you grasping for another book that can sustain that high.” — Entertainment Weekly (A rating)“Volcanically sexy, sizzingly smart, plenty bloody and just plain irresistible." —USA Today (4 stars)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.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. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet.
Historical Fiction
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More Details:
Author
Sarah Waters
Pages
576
Publisher
Penguin
Published Date
2014-09-16
ISBN
0698157702 9780698157705
Community ReviewsSee all
"I love Sarah Waters, but this book was twice the length it needed to be and every scene seemed like it went on for pages. The actual plot once it kicked in wasn't that original and the characters weren't quite strong enough to make you care a lot about them."
L B
Leah Burns
"This book was not what I was expecting it to be, but I loved it all the same and could not put it down. The only reason it isn't getting 5 stars is because it dragged a bit in the early parts, tended to be a little melodramatic and at times I just wanted to knock some sense into Frances."
"fantastic. amazing writing, sexy and mysterious"
K M
Kasey McCoy
"This book is not what I expected, but in the best way. I honestly was surprised by every turn of events and I wish I could re-read it for the first time again. I wish I'd read this book with a glass of wine and by candle light or with tea and rain. It's been a while since a story has had me on the edge of my seat and I can't explain it to you without spoiling it. "
"3/5"
A P
Alex Prime
"Excellent story. She writes with such heart."
j h
joseph honsberger
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