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Shop nowThe Paying Guests
A Novel
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Narrator
Juliet Stevenson
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Length
21 hours 29 minutes
Language
English
A truly extraordinary, masterful novel of brilliant storytelling, sensuality, and psychological suspense set in post-WWI London, from the internationally bestselling author of The Little Stranger. Three-time Booker Prize finalist Sarah Waters is at the height of her powers.
A psychological and dramatic tour de force from beloved international bestseller Sarah Waters. The year is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. In South London, in a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as Mrs Wray and her daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers.
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, the routines of the house and the lives of its inhabitants will be shaken up in unexpected ways. And as passions mount and frustration gathers, no one can foresee just how far, and how devastatingly, the disturbances will reach.
Waters proves once again that her eye for the telling details of class and character that draw people together as well as tear them apart is second to none in this masterpiece of psychological tension and emotional depth.
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 been shortlisted three times for the Man Booker Prize, has been a finalist twice for the Orange Prize, and was named one of Granta’s best young British novelists, among other distinctions. Waters lives in London.
Juliet Stevenson was awarded the CBE for her work in drama and received the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress. Stevenson’s film credits include Truly Madly Deeply, Mona Lisa Smile, Being Julia, and Bend It Like Beckham.
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 been shortlisted three times for the Man Booker Prize, has been a finalist twice for the Orange Prize, and was named one of Granta’s best young British novelists, among other distinctions. Waters lives in London.
Juliet Stevenson was awarded the CBE for her work in drama and received the Laurence Olivier Award for best actress. Stevenson’s film credits include Truly Madly Deeply, Mona Lisa Smile, Being Julia, and Bend It Like Beckham.
Reviews
"Marvellous--warm and hot and tender and terrible." --National Post
"Waters is so confident--and, line by line, her writing so beautiful, precise and polished - that she sweeps all before her. . . . [I was] helplessly pulled along by the magnetic storytelling. Twice in the last few pages I shouted aloud - though whether in joy or horror I will not tell you. Sarah Waters skilfully keeps you guessing to the end." --The Guardian
"One of the year's most suspenseful novels...a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending." --Entertainment Weekly
"Both a beautifully delineated love story and a darkly suspenseful psychological novel. . . . The reader is in for a seriously heart-pounding roller-coaster ride." --Washington Post