The Paying Guests

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 It is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class', bring with them gramophone music, colour, fun - and dangerous desires. The most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama...[quote to come] 'A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change' Guardian It is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class', bring with them gramophone music, colour, fun - and dangerous desires. The most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama... A love story that is also a crime story, this is vintage Sarah Waters.'Another wild ride of a novel... magnetic storytelling' Tracy Chevalier, Observer'You will be hooked within a page' Charlotte Mendelson, Financial Times'Sumptuous... the writing is impeccable. A joy in every respect' New Statesman'An unsurpassed fictional recorder of vanished eras and hidden lives' Sunday Times