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The Paying Guests

By Sarah Waters

Product Image: The Paying Guests

The Paying Guests

Only 2 items left in stock
Description
'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.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
599
Release Date:
2015-06-04
Publication Date:
2015-06-04
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0349004609
ISBN13:
9780349004600
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
462 g
Height:
128 cm
Width:
199 cm
Thickness:
40 cm

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Items bear visible signs of previous use, be it through distinctive notes or scratches on the surface. Despite these signs of wear, the items remain functional and tell a story of their previous owner with each scratch.
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