'We were all more or less thieves at Lant Street. But we were that kind of thief that rather eased the dodgy deed along, than did it . We could pass anything, anything at all, at speeds which would astonish you. There was only one thing, in fact, that had come and got stuck - one thing that had somehow withstood the tremendous pull of that passage - one thing that never had a price put to it. I mean of course, Me.' Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, is born among petty thieves - fingersmiths - in London's Borough. From the moment she draws breath, her fate is linked to another orphan, growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away ...A modern day Dickens, Sarah Waters is one of Britain's rising stars.

Accolades

Winner of CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2002.
Winner of Crime Writers' Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger 2002.
Shortlisted for Booker Prize for Fiction 2002.
Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2002.
Shortlisted for Orange Prize for Fiction 2002.
Shortlisted for Orange Prize 2002.
2002 Lambda Literary Award Finalist, Lesbian Fiction

Reviews

'A chilling, ingenious erotic thriller - unputdownable' Sunday Express

'Sarah Waters is one of the best storytellers alive today.sooner or later she's going to be given the Booker' Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday

'An extraordinarily good novel' Douglas Kennedy, Mail on Sunday

"Imagine a university-educated lesbian Charles Dickens with a similarly keen eye for mendacity and melodrama, and you'll have some idea of the pleasures lurking in Waters's impudent revisionist historicals: Tipping the Velvet (1999), Affinity (2000), and now this richly woven tale of duplicity, passion, and lots of other good stuff. It begins as the narrative of 17-year-old Susan Trinder, an orphan resident of the criminal domicile run by Hogarthian Grace Sucksby, a Fagin-like "farmer" of discarded infants and den-mother to an extended family of "fingersmiths" (i.e., pickpockets) and assorted confidence-persons. One of the latter, Richard Rivers (a.k.a. "Gentleman"), engages Susan in an elaborate plot to fleece wealthy old Mr. Lilly, a connoisseur of rare books-as lady's maid "Susan Smith" to Lilly's niece and ward Maude, a "simple, natural" innocent who will be married off to "Mr. Rivers," then disposed of in a madhouse, while the conspirators share her wealth. Maidservant and mistress grow unexpectedly close, until Gentleman's real plan-a surprise no reader will see coming-leads to a retelling of events we've just witnessed, from a second viewpoint-which reveals the truth about Mr. Lilly's bibliomania, and discloses to a second heroine that "Your life was not the life that you were meant to live." (Misdirections and reversals are essential components of Waters's brilliant plot, which must not be given away.) Further intrigues, escapes, and revelations climax when Susan (who has resumed her place as narrator) returns from her bizarre ordeal to Mrs. Sucksby's welcoming den of iniquity, and a final twist of the knife precipitates another crime and its punishment, astonishing discoveriesabout both Maude and Susan (among others), and a muted reconciliation scene that ingeniously reshapes the conclusion of Dickens's Great Expectations. Nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters's virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured period detail. This is a marvelous novel." Kirkus Reviews US

Author Biography

Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D in English Literature and has lectured for the Open University. She lives in London.