SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE This novel from the internationally bestsel ling author of The Little Stranger , is a brilliant 'page-turning melodrama an d 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 Camb erwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even serv ants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her sp inster 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 ro utines 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 devas tating, the disturbances will be. This is vintage Sarah Waters: beautifully des cribed with excruciating tension, real tenderness, believable characters, and su rprises. It is above all a wonderful, compelling story. 'You will be hooked w ithin a page . . . At her greatest, Waters transcends genre: the delusions in A ffinity (1999), the vulnerability in Fingersmith (2002), the undercurrents of social injustice and the unexplained that underlie all her work, take her, in m y view, well beyond the capabilities of her more seriously regarded Booker-winni ng 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. He r next will probably be even better. Until then, read it, Flaubert, Zola, and we ep' -Charlotte Mendelson, Financial Times