Sarah Waters is the New York Times–bestselling author of The Paying Guests, The Little Stranger, The Night Watch, Fingersmith, Affinity, and Tipping the Velvet. She has three times been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, has twice been a finalist for the Orange Prize, and was named one of Granta’s best young British novelists, among other distinctions. Waters lives in London.
Named a Best or Notable Book of 2014 by the New York Times, the
Washington Post, NPR, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, People, the San
Francisco Chronicle, NPR Fresh Air, Refinery 29, The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, The Seattle Times, The Kansas City Star, The
Millions, The Vancouver Sun, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Barnes &
Noble, Hudson Booksellers, AARP, Kirkus Reviews, Pop Sugar,
Publisher's Lunch, and BookPage
"Awesome, full-bodied novel. 'It's like she's saying, hey dudes,
this is how you do it.' " —Stephen King (via Twitter)
“Waters is an absolute master of pulse-pounding historical
fiction.” –Entertainment Weekly
“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… [The Paying Guests]
is a magnificent creation, a book that doubles as a time machine,
flinging us back not only to postwar London, but also to our own
lost love affairs, the kind that left us breathless” —NPR
“A beautifully observed tale of murder, suspense, crumbling class
distinctions and steamy lesbian love in post-Edwardian London. Like
something Virginia Woolf might have written if she’d been racier”
—People
“You open The Paying Guests and immediately surrender to the smooth
assuredness of Sarah Waters’s silken prose... You cannot choose but
read. The book has you in thrall. You will follow Waters and her
story anywhere… A novel that initially seems as if it might have
been written by E.M. Forster darkens into something by Dostoevsky
or Patricia Highsmith. It also becomes unputdownable … the reader
is in for a seriously heart-pounding roller-coaster ride.”—The
Washington Post
“[Waters] masterfully weaves true crime, domestic life and romantic
passion into one of the best novels of suspense since Daphne du
Maurier's Rebecca… [The Paying Guests is] diabolically clever… with
one of the hottest sex scenes ever to be set in a scullery.” —Los
Angeles Times
“Pitch perfect… powered by queer longing, defiant identity
politics, and lusty, occasionally downright kinky sex” —Slate
“[A] tour de force of precisely observed period detail and hidden
passions.” —Wall Street Journal
“It's been a while since a book kept me up until 3:30 a.m., but The
Paying Guests grabbed me and would not let me go…The wonderfully
melodramatic plot, the brilliant characterization of protagonist
Frances Wray, the vivid depiction of the zeitgeist in post-WWI
London -- each of these elements was equally responsible for the
kidnapping of this unsuspecting reader, as masterminded by British
novelist Sarah Waters, a three-time Booker Prize finalist.”
—Newsday
“A delicious hothouse of a novel…There's palpable tension from page
one, so buckle up and prepare for a wild ride…The Paying Guests
channels the past via E.M. Forster, Dickens and Tolstoy, quickened
with a dollop of contemporary Dennis Lehane noir…This is a fever
dream of a novel — Waters' best — that will leave you all wrung
out. Perhaps, like Frances, in desperate need of a cigarette.” —
USA Today
“Waters turns to the 1920s and delivers what feels like three
novels for the price of one…a meticulously observed comedy of
awkward manners … a story of torrid, forbidden trysts conducted
behind a facade of conventional feminine respectability…[and] a
tense tale of crime, mystery and suspense that culminates in a
nail-biting courtroom drama…Exceedingly difficult to put down, The
Paying Guests should scratch the same big-novel itch that Donna
Tartt’s The Goldfinch satisfied last year.” —Salon
“If you haven’t already embraced the novels of Sarah Waters, now is
the moment. Don’t think twice. Collect all six and devour them with
the same feverish abandon of the lovers who can be found between
their covers…[The Paying Guests] is no romance novel or mere
thriller, but a well-wrought, closely observed drama of a
tumultuous period in British history… Herein lies the deliciousness
of this book, and the others Waters has written: As much as Frances
longs to give her heart to someone who will cherish it, we can
never be sure, when she opens the final door, whether she will find
the lady or the gallows.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The new Sarah Waters novel, which finds the author at the height
of her powers, weaves her characteristic threads of historical
melodrama, lesbian romance, class tension, and sinister doings into
a fabric of fictional delight that alternately has the reader
flipping pages as quickly as possible, to find out what happens
next, and hesitating to turn the page, for fear of what will happen
next.” —Boston Globe
“A gold mine of period detail, from class snobbery to sex – but
with a timeless urgency when it comes to love.” —Vogue
“A beautiful and turbulent novel about the complexity, and often
futility, of personal and social change… Waters has not only
crafted a vivid portrait of class dissolution in post-WWI London,
but also a look at the achingly human need for a sense of purpose
and, if we’re lucky, a little intimacy.” —A.V. Club (A-
grade)
“Sarah Waters is so skillful that the reader (to borrow a simile
from Lilian and Frances' love affair) softens in her hands like
wax: It's impossible to think critically about technique or style
or plot — or do anything but turn the next page. The Paying
Guests makes for a transporting, even rapturous, reading
experience.” —NPR.org
“Waters is that rare literary stylist who can write a rip-roaring
page-turner without sacrificing characterization or
description…Even minor characters…are drawn with Dickensian flair…
absorbing…you will want to sample her other works.” —Providence
Journal
"Waters always writes well about sex and her new novel is no
exception: It's both hot and sensually beautiful, transcending
cheap cliché." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A great book captivates you — pulls you in as though you have
fallen somewhere into the plot. Author Sarah Waters is a master of
this premise — a heady task she proves in her latest historical
novel, The Paying Guests. Waters takes readers on a journey through
the past — we begin reading late at night, only to find ourselves
eyes-wide-open, completing the book in the early dawn… pining for
her next thriller.” —The Weekender
“[A] pulse-pounder of a novel that feels…personal and raw…even
while it delivers the genre goods…Waters remains a master of her
genre, the historical novel rewritten as a dissection of the
individual conscience… undeniably fascinating.” —The Chicago
Tribune
“The Paying Guests is a richly sensual and suspenseful
historical novel — sleek and streamlined” —Columbus Dispatch
"Clear your calendar for this transfixing book: You’ll want no
interruptions. The propulsive story focuses on a young woman,
Frances, living with her widowed mother in struggling 1920s London.
Needing money, they take in a pair of newlyweds, and the tension
builds as Frances begins a passionate, secret affair with the wife
that leads to a terrible crime."—AARP Bulletin
“Lesbian sex, brutal murder and frantic cover-ups don’t tend to go
hand in hand with subtle slow-burn storytelling. But that’s exactly
the case in Sarah Waters’s captivating new novel, The Paying
Guests…To say anything more would be a disservice to Waters’s
masterful narrative. But suffice it to say that a terrible thing
occurs, the women’s relationship is tested and
you will be the crazy person staying up until 2 a.m. to
see how it all comes together.” —PureWow.com
“The first three hundred pages of Guests belong to
Charles Dickens, but the rest of the book reads like pure, uncut
Patricia Highsmith. Waters brings the best of those disparate muses
together and convinces them to dance to the tune of her beautiful
music.” —The Stranger
“Waters has always been attracted to sensationalist plots, and this
novel progresses through at least two: a secret love affair between
two women and a murder trial. But the novel is really about tiny
changes in feeling, often evoked in gorgeous simile.” —The New
Yorker
“One of the greatest modern novelists… As in every Waters novel you
will be hooked within a page… The Paying Guests reminds us of every
great novel we’ve gasped or winced at, or loudly urged the
protagonists through, and it does not relent… She can, it seems, do
everything: the madness of love; the squalor of desire; the
coexistence of devotion and annoyance; ‘the tangle of it all’… At
her greatest, Waters transcends genre…The Paying Guests is the
apotheosis of her talent…. I have tried and failed to find a single
negative thing to say about it…Read it, Flaubert, Zola, and weep.”
—The Financial Times
“[A] seductive thriller.” —Vanity Fair
“Outstanding. [The Paying Guests] is the work of an artist at the
height of her powers… How difficult, and how admirable, to pull off
an ending that both sates you and leaves you chomping for more… You
feel as if an actual life were unfolding before you—a life that
happens to be far more thrilling than most.” —Pop Matters
“Shocking, no matter what generation you belong to.” —Marie
Claire
“Perfectly transporting.” —Gawker
“Ms. Waters’ prose is…effortless to read…[A] beautifully
evoked story, rich with period detail.” —The Economist
“An entirely believable piece of social commentary that
nevertheless expertly undermines the damning, short-sighted, and
narrow-minded strictures of the period it sets out to elucidate.”
—The Daily Beast
“The awkwardness of sharing a house with strangers jumps off the
page. You hear every creak in the floor and you sense how very
crowded the rooms suddenly feel — and that something terrible is
about to happen… Waters’ writing is a pleasure” —Seattle
Times
“Hard to put down. It has the pacing of a thriller, and the
atmosphere, period setting and class-consciousness of truly
informed historical fiction.” —Bay Area Reporter
“The superbly talented Sarah Waters — three times shortlisted for
the Man Booker Prize — leads her readers into hidden worlds, worlds
few of us knew existed. And so it is with The Paying Guests….You
can practically taste the tension in the lovely old house... [a]
heart-crushing…utterly engrossing tale.” —Toronto Star
“Waters is one of fiction’s rock stars…[and] The Paying Guests is,
quite literally, a virtuoso performance.” —Harpers Bazaar (UK)
“Raunchy, romantic and thoroughly entertaining. Another triumph for
Sarah Waters, [The Paying Guests] is unputdownable.” —The
Express
“Impressive and pleasurable… Waters sets her tale in the time
effortlessly… A lot of work must have gone into writing this novel
but it is no labor at all to devour” — Lionel Shriver, The New
Statesman
“A masterpiece of social unease… so compellingly readable, that the
temptation to finish the 500-odd pages of Waters’s novel at a
sitting is powerful… a virtuoso feat of storytelling” — London
Evening Standard
“Waters has become a virtuoso historical novelist…
a page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London
on the verge of great change.” —The Guardian
“This is perfect territory for Sarah Waters…[and] the sex is
blazingly described.” —The Spectator
“Always superb at suspense, Waters…draws you into a narrative that,
while remaining agonizingly credible, is a master-feat of twists
and shifts… you can hardly turn the pages fast enough.” —The Times
(UK)
“Waters excels at presenting the raw interiority of a quietly
heroic woman, slightly too ahead of her time… a poignant love story
which symbolically sees in the death of the old order, the death of
the old-fashioned husband and maybe the birth of an era of love
without secrets.” —The Independent
“Fans of Sarah Waters’ previous novels know she is a gifted
storyteller with a way of bringing historical eras to life… With
the swiftly shifting mores of postwar British society as a
backdrop, [she] once again provides a singular novel of
psychological tension, emotional depth and historical detail.”
—BookPage
“An absorbing and richly satisfying historical novel…[that] seduces
the reader… The Paying Guests should establish Waters as one of
Britain's best contemporary storytellers.” — Shelf Awareness
“Waters’s page-turning prose conceals great subtlety. Acutely
sensitive to social nuance, she keeps us constantly alert to the
pain and passion churning under the ‘false, bright’ surface of
gentility. From a novelist who has been shortlisted for the Booker
three times, this is a winner” —Intelligent Life
“Riveting, [Waters’] best yet…It will be an injustice if it doesn’t
win one of the main literary prizes.” —The Daily Express (UK)
“Waters is acutely alive to the way domestic interiors can mirror
psychological ones… I read the topsy turvey courtroom denouement
with genuine wonder at the virtuosity of its unravelling, the
emotional subtlety of its implications about how people linger in
others. Such intelligence is indeed thrilling.” —The Telegraph
“Once in a very long while comes a book that is so vivid and so
powerful that the disconnect from normal time and living takes
place once again. The Paying Guests is such a book. I found myself
transported, yes, but also moved, shaken and disorientated by
turns…[Waters’] eye and ear for detail are extraordinary. The
reader does not so much read about the villa on Champion Hill as
inhabit it…But The Paying Guests is no study of manners…It is
grisly, graphic and utterly gripping…impeccably well written…rich
in intelligence, and emotionally profound. In short, a superb
accomplishment, and almost, one might say, something of a wonder.”
—The Star (UK)
“A triumph: spellbinding, profound and almost problematically
addictive… Waters is so powerful a narrator, so in command of her
material as she twists, defies and confronts without using cheap
tricks, that she could make us believe anything… Morally complex,
atmospheric, romantic and psychologically deep, The Paying Guests
is an astonishing achievement… a beautiful and brilliant work by a
consummate storyteller” —Sunday Express
“Gripping… Sarah Waters is, quite simply, a marvelous writer…[with]
complete mastery over her material.” —The Globe and Mail
“Marvelous… absorbing…[and] delicious” — National Post
“Far more than a tale of passion… The novel’s remarkable depth of
field – from its class-ridden background to its individuals’
peccadilloes – is sharply portrayed by an author writing at her
best. Waters’s 20-20 vision perceives the interior world of her
characters with rare acuity in a prose style so smooth it pours
down the page in a book to be prized.” —Scotland on Sunday
“Compelling and richly-written.” —Northern Echo
“The novel brilliantly evokes the shabby respectability and
claustrophobic social demands of its post-war south London setting,
and the conflicting emotions of its protagonists and star-crossed
lovers” —Quadrapheme
“One of Waters's finest achievements lies in continuing to entice
the reader through deft plotting, even as her characters grow
arguably more human”—Literary Review (UK)
“It's easy to get so caught up in this quiet tale of suburban
sapphic passion that you forget who's masterminding it. Waters is
at her best when she sends the plot on dizzying twists, and what
seems at first to be a novel about repressed desire soon spirals
madly into murder, adultery and betrayal… an absorbing read, rich
in period detail and complex characters.” —The List (UK)
“With the intricate plotting of Dickens and the gothic textures of
the novels of the Bronte sisters, Waters blurs the lines of
Victorian fiction by bringing the hidden sexual world into the
light, reframing erotic secrets in marvels of pseudo-Victorian
crafting… exquisite” —The Australian
"So brilliantly unexpected, and so nerve-shreddingly tense, that it
keeps the reader guessing until the very last paragraph” —The
Bookseller (UK)
“Will keep you turning the page to see just how tense things can
get.” — LibraryReads
"Breathtaking." —Publishers Weekly, PW Picks Book of the Week
"An exquisitely tuned exploration of class in post-Edwardian
Britain—with really hot sex…Tension is high from the first
paragraph…Waters is a master of pacing, and her metaphor-laced
prose is a delight…until the last page, the reader will have no
idea what’s going to happen. Waters keeps getting better, if that’s
even possible after the sheer perfection of her earlier
novels.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“An absorbing character study [and] expertly paced and gripping
psychological narrative…Readers of Water’s previous novels know
that she brings historical eras to life with consummate skill,
rendering authentic details into layered portraits of particular
times and places…breathtaking” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred
review)
“Moody and atmospheric, this latest from three-time Booker Prize
finalist Waters (The Little Stranger) has a rich historical
setting…[and] keeps you guessing until the very end” —Library
Journal
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