Sarah Waters

Forced to take in lodgers in economically challenged 1922 South London, widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter find their lives profoundly and disturbingly changed by the arrival of a modern young couple. By the best-selling author of The Little Stranger. 100,000 first printing.

The Paying Guests

azliana aziz

as pageturner as it is, i wish it could be compressed. some parts are too long.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE This novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Little Stranger, is a brilliant 'page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London of the verge of great change' (Guardian) 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. 'You will be hooked within a page . . . At her greatest, Waters transcends genre: the delusions in Affinity (1999), the vulnerability in Fingersmith (2002), the undercurrents of social injustice and the unexplained that underlie all her work, take her, in my view, well beyond the capabilities of her more seriously regarded Booker-winning peers. But The Paying Guests is the apotheosis of her talent; at least for now. I have tried and failed to find a single negative thing to say about it. Her next will probably be even better. Until then, read it, Flaubert, Zola, and weep' -Charlotte Mendelson, Financial Times

shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

Cheri Fuller

Another fantastic, twisted story from Sarah Waters. Wow. There's no predicting where the story will go. I found it to drag a bit in one section but I was too invested to even consider stopping. And I felt on the edge of my seat until the very last word.

There are few authors who can weave a tale like Waters and I'll certainly pick up her next book. 

**7/2015 Re-reading and enjoying it just as much as the first time. Maybe a little more.**

'There came the splash of water and the rub of heels as Mrs Barber stepped into the tub. After that there was a silence, broken only by the occasional echoey plink of drips from the tap... 'Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms - as something like two great waddling shillings. But this, she thought, was what it really meant to have paying guests: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself and a naked Mrs Barber was a few feet of kitchen and a thin scullery door. An image sprang into her head: that round flesh, crimsoning in the heat.' 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.

edith w.

I'm not finishing more books than I am finishing these days, I think, but that's a decision I took some time ago - if a novel is moving me not one jot, then I will not persevere. I did try with this Waters, though, because I have loved just about everything else she's written. But when you get to 35% (kindle money) and realise that you've read little more than repetitive exposition so far, you know that you've had enough. I hope for the sake of those of you who do stick with it that *something* happens (aside from the obvious which we saw coming on, like, page 2 and stopped caring about by page 11).

Rebecka S.

Took me a long time to read this. Not Sarah Waters best book

Kerry Gibbons

Okay, so clearly this AUDIOBOOK took me soooo long to finish. It felt about the same length as game of thrones but without all the action.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, even if it was slow-moving, that seemed appropriate to the story. However, once Lenny goes kaputski, I sort of lost interest and the book's entire tone changed dramatically to one I simply wasn't very interested in.

My ending: Lenny meets an unfortunate end and Lil and Frances live their lives together happily. There. I fixed it. 

I feel bad giving it two stars, since the first half got 4 in my mind, but the second half was just not what I signed up for...

This was so much more enjoyable than my last Waters book, The Night Watch. It is a slow burn, and takes quite awhile for the action to happen, but once it does it's really exciting. I knew the basic gist of the first part of the story, but was totally thrown by the developments halfway through. As a result, the book is clearly divided in two different stories: forbidden love and crime/court drama.

In the first half, I really enjoyed Frances and Lilian and their story. I found them both likable and charming and really rooted for them. In the second half though, Frances especially became pretty unlikable to me. One small detail that really changed my opinion was (view spoiler)[how she started calling Lilian "Lily" like Len used to, despite her wanting to call her Lilian earlier in the novel because most people didn't call her that. It was especially when she was saying nasty things to Lilian, which really soured me on her and their relationship (hide spoiler)]. I also found them both ridiculously stupid with how they handled the events, and found myself quite frustrated with how the second half unfolded, especially with their conversations about what was happening. The second half was also a bit tedious and bloated, but then it ended too soon. I wanted more resolution afterwards and less build-up during the trial.

Overall, not Waters' best, but still better than a couple others. It's squarely in the middle for me. Only one left!

Neeti Choudhari

Too good to put down. The ending, however, seemed a bit dull.

Kwan Ann Tan

The "volcanically sexy" ( USA Today ) bestseller about a widow and her daughter who take a young couple into their home in 1920s London. 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.

The Paying Guests

Reviews