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The Paying Guests

shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

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 'I raced through it, breathing fast and when I had finished had to reread parts of the wonderful early chapters. I don't like historical novels but this is the exception. I shall let a few months go by and then read it all over again with, I'm sure, undiminished pleasure' Ruth Rendall, 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.©2014 Sarah Waters Belletristik Frauenliteratur Literatur & Belletristik

Kritikerstimmen

Absolutely brilliant
Another wild ride of a novel . . . magnetic storytelling
A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change
This novel magnificently confirms Sarah Waters's status as an unsurpassed fictional recorder of vanished eras and hidden lives
I raced through it, breathing fast and when I had finished had to reread parts of the wonderful early chapters. I don't like historical novels but this is the exception. I shall let a few months go by and then read it all over again with, I'm sure, undiminished pleasure
You know you are in the hands of a skilful, confident writer when you read a Sarah Waters book. She slowly reels you in. She weaves plots and themes that creep up and entangle you while you are innocently following her characters. They go about their shadowy business and by the time you raise your head from the page to take a breath, you're hooked
The Paying Guests demonstrates the writerly qualities for which Waters is esteemed, proving as 'fantastically moody and resonant', in terms of the rendering of domestic space, as a novel the author herself described as such and which she once said she would like to have written: Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca
Sickeningly tense - and thumpingly good
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
A nod towards Little Dorrit also seems perceptible in the book's quiet ending amid the bustle and clamour of London. Unillusioned but tentatively hopeful, it is a beautifully gauged conclusion to a novel of ambitious reach and triumphant accomplishment
A masterpiece of social unease . . . It isn't so much the plot that makes you read on - the novel's armature is a comparatively uncomplicated suspense narrative but barnacled to it is an astonishing accretion of detail . . . A virtuoso feet of storytelling
A seductive thriller
The Paying Guests is so evocative and compelling that all the time I was reading, I had a feeling it was me who had done something terrible, instead of her characters
Brilliantly involving . . . juicy, beautifully observed and not afraid to be explicit
Waters's page-turning prose conceals great subtlety. Acutely sensitive to social nuance, she keeps us constantly alert . . . From a novelist who has been shortlisted for the Booker three times, this is a winner
Alle Sterne
Am relevantesten
Juliet Stevenson deserves a full 5-Star rating! Brilliant! I hope she recites another book soon!

Excellent

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Die Charaktere sind wunderbar beschrieben und Juliet Stevenson liest wie immer einfach wundervoll vor. Die Story ist auch so spannend, so daß ich mich nur schwer von den "earphones" trennen konnte. Aber die Beschreibung der Liebesszenen zwischen den beiden Protagonistinnen war für mich "a bit too much". Natürlich weiß ich um die sexuelle Orientierung von Sarah Waters und deren Einfluß auf ihre Werke, habe alle ihre Bücher mit Vergnügen gelesen, gehört oder zumindest deren Verfilmung gesehen. Aber in diesem Buch hat mich die zum Teil extensive Darstellung der besagten Szenen gestört. Vielleicht bin ich auch nur zu altmodisch, weshalb sich jeder selbst darüber eine Meinung bilden möge. Jedenfalls ist es ein großartiges Hörbuch, wenn manche vielleicht auch einige Szenen ausblenden möchten.

Sarah Waters at her best but ...

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I simply love this book. Sarah Waters is truly masterful. It does start slowly, but in a way chess pieces are set, methodically and purposefully. Once the plot thickens, no one really has power over it. I specially like small hints hidden in what seems endless description of chores, dead mouse, Turkish delight box, stockings, fathers chair etc. All the violence, passion, tenderness and despair is there for a reason, as if they fuel each other. When I finished listening I had to go back and do it again. The intensity of last chapters made me yearn for slow uneventful beginning. This is when I noticed repetitive duality in it, typical for Sarah W. , the main character is incomplete, practical but empty without its warm and romantic other half. But not just that, events repeat, at first something completely innocent plays out, five or six chapters later, almost same thing happens again, but with circumstances changed and massively emotionally changed.
There is also strong feminist attitude in the background, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
This audiobook wouldn’t be so enjoyable without skillful portrayal of characters by Juliet S. simply wonderfully read.


Wonderful

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Deeply disappointed. The story was not convincing at all, especially the so called love affair. The main character is always complaining about everything. For me this audiobook was a complete waste of time.

Boring

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