Affinity

Affinity by Sarah Waters
Historical Fiction
A young upper-class woman, Margaret Prior, just recovering from a suicide attempt starts to visit the women in Millbank prison. There she meets Selina Dawes who is jailed because of a seance gone wrong. Selina is a spiritualist.

As the story progresses Margaret seems to be more and more drawn to her. At the same time Margaret's home life is becoming more and more difficult. Her siblings are all married and she is hounded by her mother. She is taking more and more drugs for her 'spells'

I disliked this story. It is dark and forbidding just like the prison. I have read Waters before and loved her stories but this just did not ring at all true. Who in their right mind would allow a young person who had just tried to commit suicide to visit in a dark place like a prison or to be left alone for any length of time at all? Wouldn't her mother try to keep things light and not depressing? Also this concept of Victorian ladies having to faint, have headaches or swoon is beyond my thinking. Oh yes, and let us overcompensate these conditions by handing out drugs or better yet letting these young ladies take whatever amount of drugs they wish. I guess the best thing I took away from this book is that all Victorian ladies have no brain cells.

First Line: "I was never so frightened as I am now."
Rating:
(2.5/5)

Fingersmith

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Historical Fiction

Susan Trinder is seventeen and a foster kid in a family of fingersmiths (thieves). She has been cared for and somewhat coddled if one can be in this environment. A plot is hatched whereby she is to act as a lady's maid to young and wealthy Maud Lilly. She is to gently push her into the arms of Mr. Rivers. Maude Lilly and Mr. Rivers get married and then put Maude in a nuthouse and make off with her fortune. On the surface that is the story. But nothing is as it seems and there are numerous twists and turns.

This is a Victorian historical novel at its best. Full of dodgers, thieves, lunatics, murderers, swindlers, child marketers, charlatans,and orphans, this reads like a Dickensian book. And a la Waters style there is a little lesbian love thrown into the mix.

This is a book where the reader is always wondering what will come next. Waters delivers a masterpiece that is a thrill to read. Waters develops her characters and plot superbly and this is a book not to be missed

First Line: "My name, in those days, was Susan Trinder."

Rating:
(4.0/5)

Night Watch

Night Watch by Sarah Waters
Historical Fiction

This book starts at the end which is 1947and then proceeds to 1944 and then 1941. It follows four characters in London. In 1947, post-war London it is how they all end up.

But the most interesting of the sections is 1944 during WWII. Some are ambulance drivers driving their injured to hospitals in the middle of air raids. One is a person who searches houses after the air raids to find undetonated bombs and other nasty stuff.

1941 is the section describing how they originally met.

Sarah Waters is known for the homosexual content in her books and this book is no different but it is just part of the story and does not overwhelm the plot. I found the first section a bit tedious but loved the second part. This is a different kind of read where you know the ending but now want to find out about the middle and the beginning.

First Line: "So this, said Kay to herself, is the sort of person you've become: a person whose clocks and wrist watches have stopped, and who tells the time, instead, by the particular kind of cripple arriving at her landlord's door."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Tipping the Velvet

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
Historical Fiction

Tipping the Velvet is about lesbian love in the late 1800s. Nancy Astley seems like any other young girl living by the sea, helping in her family's oyster restaurant and going to the occasional live show.

Then she sees Kitty Butler on stage and becomes besotted by her and moves to London to be her dresser and hopefully lover. Kitty eventually breaks her heart and Nancy becomes a renter and then meets Diana and so on and so on.

Nancy seems to be able to be everything to the person she is currently with. She is like a chameleon. Life is a stage to her. She must learn to love the 'right' person.

I was amazed at the latitude of acceptance of the 'tom' in this period.

Warning: There are lesbian love scenes depicted in this book.

Rating:

(4.0/5)