Sarah Waters

Set just after the first World War, this story is brilliantly set in its time and morality. A really gripping read.

The Paying Guests

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My review -

Frances and her mother are struggling, a few years after the Great War, to maintain their house alone. Her brothers were killed in the war and her father died following disastrous investments, leaving them unable to maintain the house or keep servants. They advertise for lodgers, whose rent will enable them to pay their food bills, if not to improve the house. The young couple seem not to have an ideal marriage and Frances hears raised voices from time to time. She and the girl, Lilian, become close and out of their burgeoning relationship comes a disaster.

This book didn’t seem as long as I know it is. I zipped through it, fascinated. So many tiny details lit up the times – buying a box of nibs, for example. While by no means a between-the-wars child I still remember dippy nibs. The story was beautifully set in its time through little things like this. The disaster, which initially welds Frances and Lilian together, changes their lives and the balance of their relationship utterly. I loved the ending which left me still with the characters and the story in my mind. Sarah Waters doesn’t spoon-feed her readers. She tells such a good story.