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The Paying Guests Hardcover – September 16, 2014

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Sarah Waters (Author)
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Sarah Waters (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars 1,875 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Riverhead Books; First Edition edition (September 16, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1594633118
  • ISBN-13: 978-1594633119
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.8 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,875 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsPLEASE Masterpiece/BBC Make This a TV Show!
By Mary Lins TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on June 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Perhaps I am too enamored of Masterpiece and BBC shows such as “Sherlock”, “The Bletchley Circle” and “Foyle’s War”, for, the entire time I was reading Sarah Waters’ wonderful new novel, “The Paying Guests”, I was casting it for a period-piece Masterpiece Mystery. All the ingredients are here: wonderful characters of all classes and temperaments, a richly moody time in London history, an arresting story of love, murder and betrayal that asks the ultimate question about doing the right thing and at what personal cost?

Sarah Waters is a masterful storyteller, not just because her plots grab you, but because her prose is sublime. I have many reader pals for whom “prose is everything” and they will gobble this treat up like the richest dessert. Suspense like Waters’ takes my breath away, and the quality of writing reminds me why I love to read.

The first third of the novel sets the stage and introduces us to the once happy home in a good area of London where Francis Wray and her mother now live. It’s 1922 and the post-WWI economy has forced them to take in boarders, the “paying guests”. Enter Lillian and Len Barber, a young married couple recently moved out of Len’s parent’s house to rent rooms with the Wrays. Francis is almost immediately attracted to Lillian, and Lillian is unhappy with Len; the stage is illuminated.

The middle third of the novel contains the thrillingly suspenseful commission of several crimes. Here Waters speeds up the action and this reader couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough.

The last third deals with the aftermath of the crimes and is every bit as gripping and suspenseful. As the revelations of this early twentieth century investigation unfold and a trial begins, we have surrendered ourselves completely to Sarah Walters’ bewitching tale.
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2.0 out of 5 starsTURGID AND OVERWRITTEN
By Charlotte Vale-Allen VINE VOICE on July 7, 2014
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
I have been a long-time fan of the author--since Fingersmith, in fact. I have liked some of her books better than others, with Fingersmith remaining my favorite. So The Paying Guests comes as a deep disappointment. It is overwrought and lugubrious, with central characters it is very hard to care about. Ironically, I found the secondary characters more alive, more viable than Frances and Lilian, the primaries. Leonard, the husband, and Lilian's family, all breathe deeply, bubbling with energy, and step off the pages. But Frances and Lilian are a tiresome duo and 560 pages of their few ups and many, many downs make for difficult reading.

The Paying Guests are at Frances's home because there is a great need for the income they bring to her and her widowed mother. But aside from an early mention of what that cash represents, and given that the money is so badly needed, it seems a most serious omission to go close to 500 pages before it is mentioned again.

Frances's endless internal anguishing becomes hard to take. This is a woman who lacks very little degree of lightness or humor. She just can't get outside of her own head. And Lilian is something of a cipher. The view of her character seems to change depending on Frances's whims and moods. There are moments when things jolt to life, most notably the confrontation scene between Lilian, her husband Len, and Frances. There is great tension in this encounter but it is soon overwhelmed by the massive weight of pages and pages of interior description.

Having looked at the other reviews, I'm kind of amazed to see this book referred to as a "thriller," and as possessed of the makings of a Masterpiece Mystery. We can't have read the same 560-odd pages.Read more ›
29 Comments 346 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Paying Guests
By Brendan Moody VINE VOICE on June 24, 2014
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
All of Sarah Waters' novels have historical rather than contemporary settings, and most have featured lesbians as prominent characters, but I think she is best described not as a lesbian novelist (there's something faintly diminishing about that label), or even as a historical novelist, but as a writer of literary thrillers. That this may seem an odd label is a sign of how, despite certain common settings and themes, Waters adapts her tone and style to the demands of each type of thriller: erotic (TIPPING THE VELVET), Gothic (AFFINITY and FINGERSMITH), or ghostly (THE LITTLE STRANGER). Even THE NIGHT WATCH, perhaps the least plot-driven and most "literary" of Waters' novels, attains a certain thrilling quality from its reversed narrative structure. So what type of thriller is her latest, THE PAYING GUESTS? That would be telling.

At first it seems to combine elements of THE NIGHT WATCH and THE LITTLE STRANGER, though with a setting after the First World War rather than the Second. Like the Ayres family of THE LITTLE STRANGER, the Wrays face social and emotional upheaval as a result of post-war changes. But theirs is a more modest existence: the home they can no longer maintain is no grand manor but an ordinary house, one that was once full of life but now feels empty after the loss of two sons in the war, and the sudden death of the father around the same time. The latter grief revealed a series of bad investments that has stretched the family's finances to the breaking point: even with Frances Wray doing all the housework there isn't enough for her and her mother to live on. And so they make the fateful decision to rent part of the upstairs to what decorum demands they call, not lodgers, but paying guests.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 starsDo not commit to this book

If you are someone who commits to a book DO NOT COMMIT to this one. It is a huge disappointment. It is not a thriller but a gloomy romance between weak characters that takes pages... Read more

Published 13 hours ago by C.G.
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

I really become disinterested in the story, characters and didn't route for anyone.

Published 2 days ago by LAURIE PALFREY
4.0 out of 5 starsA mystery with you knowing who done it....

My first experience with reading about Gay women. Well written and interesting.

Published 4 days ago by Martha Schulz
5.0 out of 5 starsGreater

Great awnsns d. Some sms a,d come. Me. Moms. End w,done kW,me mske when me be skin. Dow c nal

Published 6 days ago by Beth Tokarska
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Excellent turn pager

Published 7 days ago by Cindy E Wolf
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

A little over dramatic with little substance.

Published 10 days ago by Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsLife for some in post-WWI Britain

I loved reading the story from Frances's honest, postwar point of view. The descriptions of places were so visual, and her characterizations were completely engaging. Read more

Published 10 days ago by Lisa Shoemaker
3.0 out of 5 starsIt's a good read but Waters

It's a good read but Waters, in my opinion, goes into way too much detail. I ended up doing a lot of skim reading just to get through some long passages and I didn't miss a thing.

Published 13 days ago by mgpccc
3.0 out of 5 starsThe writing is very good however.

Only half way through and still not sure where it is going. The writing is very good however.

Published 16 days ago by Barbara B. Kennedy
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

Started off so well but just dragged on and on.

Published 18 days ago by Amazon Customer

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