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The Paying Guests
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The Paying Guests
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The Paying Guests
Audiobook21 hours

The Paying Guests

Written by Sarah Waters

Narrated by Juliet Stevenson

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

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.

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. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances's life-or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters's finest achievement yet.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 16, 2014
ISBN9780698179929
Unavailable
The Paying Guests
Author

Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters has a Ph.D. in English literature and has been an associate lecturer withthe Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, the South Bank Show Award for Literature, and her books have been short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and the Man Booker and Orange prizes. In 2003, she was named Author of the Year three times andwas chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.

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Reviews for The Paying Guests

Rating: 3.6231884057971016 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This book just is not the type of work I enjoy. The lesbian relationship between the main character and wife of the victim was distracting (but necessary) to the plot.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.Sarah Waters has been on my to-read list for-freaking-ever. I couldn’t pass up the review audiobook, especially since I’d heard such great things about Juliet Stevenson’s narration. Though The Paying Guests was an enjoyable lesson, I definitely chose the wrong Waters book to start with, since this one didn’t really end up being the type of story I typically enjoy, given that it’s all about infidelity and a mystery. Womp womp.Let’s start with what I like about The Paying Guests. Most of all, I love the setting in 1920s England. It runs through some of the same dynamics of Downton Abbey, with the changing classes. Frances Wray and her mother were once well-to-do, but now, to stave off debt, they have to rent out part of their home to the nouveau riche. Frances has embraced her new role as landlady and found simple joys in her new chores. Her mother, on the other hand, feels uncomfortable with the whole ordeal and doesn’t like seeing Frances doing the work of the help.Their new lodgers, Leonard and Lilian, however, are not bothered by this. They’re from a lower class, but have done quite well for themselves. They don’t see through the impressive size of the house to the fact that it’s slowly falling apart. They’re new enough to money to still be awed. Len, and Lilian too somewhat, are nosy sorts, curious about the people with whom they’re now living. Again, I think these dynamics are very interesting, because of the role reversal and the fact that such dissimilar people are thrown into such close acquaintance.As you might expect from a Sarah Waters novel, Frances and Lilian inevitably begin an affair. Everything about it follows typical affair protocols. While I’m less bothered by infidelity in historical novels, 1920’s modern enough that I’m not as wont to overlook it. Plus, the real kicker is that, despite some admittedly intense sexual chemistry, I really have no faith in the relationship between Frances and Lilian. They’re both convinced it’s love, but I remain thoroughly unconvinced. In face, View Spoiler » I’m fairly certain this isn’t how I was meant to feel about their romance.The murder mystery was just so typical, I guess, aside, perhaps, from the conclusion to it. The story reminded me fairly heavily of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, only about British lesbians. Due to the fact that I didn’t really care about their romance to start with, I very much did not care about the outcome of the investigation. Actually, the whole murder mystery plot made me like both Lilian and Frances less, because they make all the worst life choices all of the time.Juliet Stevenson’s narration was delightful as promised. She’s a very solid narrator, and managed to make all the characters easy to distinguish, which can be tricky in a story so lengthy. Speaking of, the length of this book seemed really excessive, considering that the plot was so predictable. It’s not so much that I was bored, because I did enjoy listening to the audiobook, but I did feel like it was running on and on ad infinitum.I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one for a Sarah Waters newbie, but it was pleasant enough on the whole. Unless you’re not picky about mysteries, The Paying Guests might be a struggle at times.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Probably the best 1920s-era lesbian thriller I have ever read. I have kind of stayed away from Ms Waters since reading Fingersmith years ago. Somehow I was persuaded back and while this was less tricksy and less sly than the earlier book, it was still satisfyingly unusual.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This was the longest book with very little payout. I don’t know why I finished it. I could have not before page 100... but I was stubborn and did read all 564 pages. And was left disappointed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very absorbing plot and hugely detailed characters. Sometimes the action moves a bit slowly but you are pulled into the story regardless right to the last few pages. It is 1922 just outside of London and a widow and her daughter Frances have to take in paying guests. A young married couple move into their house and right away Frances is drawn into their lives. She becomes way to involved with the couple especially Lillian in ways that are disturbing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story drew me into the time period - the post war survival of a woman and her mother, survivors of a family that can't afford to keep their old house anymore and take in a "clerk class" couple as boarders. Frances has become a servant to the house despite her mother's attempts to hold on to their class. Part of me would like to be snarky and dismiss it as dyke drama meets Crime and Punishment. I did need to take a break from Frances and Lillian at times, but I did care what happened to them. The reader expertly portrayed voices and accents that illustrated the class tensions.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I just longed to get to the end of this one. Two thirds into the book I wanted to abandon it but I felt I had too much time invested in it so kept on going. What a slog!Set in 1922 the story begins with a mother and daughter in straitened circumstances being forced to open their home to lodgers. The background of genteel poverty opens up many opportunities, after all, it's been a topic for many writers in the history of English literature, but Waters can't pull it off. The characters, are poorly developed, the writing is repetitive and overwrought, there is just too much going on and even then it's boring, especially the graphic sex element. The bloody parts were bloodier than the seriously grisly crime novel I'm reading. Far too long, it could have been cut by half and would have been improved.What I didn't like about this book would fill pages. However, Juliet Stevenson's flawless narration raised my rating far above what it would have been if I'd read the print version.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story unfolded slowly. A bit too slowly. The second half was better, but the ending was disappointing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In 1920s London, the daughter of a widowed owner of a boarding house meets a husband and wife, paying guests, and falls in love with the wife. Her husband is abusive. This would have been a good read but for the explicit lovemaking scenes between the daughter and the wife. I just don't need the voyeurism, frankly. Maybe it's for younger readers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Terrific, taut tale
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A long, lesbian version of a Barbara Pym novel, quite well written, but with an ending that fulfills none of the novel's promise. There are at least 20 hints that an exciting ending is coming with a big twist, and then it's as if Waters got too tired after 600+ pages to pull all the threads together and give the readers the conclusion she led us to expect.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I received a free advance review copy of this book from the publisher.It's 1922 and things are bad for twenty-something Frances Wray and her widowed mother. They decide to rent a portion of their London home. Leonard, a clerk in an insurance office, and his wife Lilian move into the improvised apartment. The seem a "nice couple." Frances takes a liking to Lilian and the two become very friendly--a friendship that changes their lives and affects the lives of everyone around them.This book moves at the pace of a very bad soap opera. There is too much trivial detail, too much description of minor characters who add nothing to the story. A crime is committed, but we know who did it. The only mystery is whether or not it will be solved. The pace does pick up a a bit in the last third of the book, but not enough. This is a story that could (and should) be told in about 350 pages. Unfortunately, Sarah Waters took over 550 pages to tell it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    England. lesbians. a love affair. a murder. would have been better, if shorter!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mixed feeling about this book, it is not really a murder mystery, more about relationship and drama. Great description of the characters.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Cant really said I read this. DNF. Got through 55% and gave up. I really thought it was going to be a different novel than it turned out to be and that was so disappointing, I couldn't continue. It is just not the kind of novel I want to read right now. There are so many other books out there to be loved.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I didn't care for any of the main characters and found it difficult to care what happened to them, so the amount of hand-wringing that went on throughout the middle portion of this overlong story was tedious. The supporting characters (especially Lillian's family) were far more interesting, but we don't see nearly enough of them. If I'd been reading this book, I probably would've put it aside long before the end, but fortunately had picked up the audio version. The talented Juliet Stevenson's narration sparkles, even when the story does not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of those books you have to keep reading because you have no idea how things are going to turn out. Superbly written: you are thoroughly planted in the once genteel, now slightly down-at-heel post-war world of Frances and her mother, grieving for everything they have lost and having to struggle on with life even though it seems pointless.

    Everything changes for Frances with the arrival of Lilian and Len. I enjoyed the observations on class distinctions, the bravery of the nameless ex-serviceman neighbour, the way the Champion Hill house seems to become a character in the novel itself.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Took me a while to get through this book, but I enjoyed it. I even watch enough British youtubers that I could hear the accent while I read.

    Really happy with the ending. I thought it wrapped the story up beautifully. I can only imagine beyond the ending that it's HEA.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another fantastic, twisted story from Sarah Waters. Wow. There's no predicting where the story will go. I found it to drag a bit in one section but I was too invested to even consider stopping. And I felt on the edge of my seat until the very last word.

    There are few authors who can weave a tale like Waters and I'll certainly pick up her next book.

    **7/2015 Re-reading and enjoying it just as much as the first time. Maybe a little more.**
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I liked the writing style, but not Francis.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This frustrated the bejesus out of me. It could have been a great book and it was not. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I will chime in one more time to say that this should have been 200 pages shorter. There are 3 full pages describing the FLOOR in Lilian's family home, the way in which the floors change as one ascends the stairs, the way the light from below shines through. I get what Waters was doing -- drawing this picture of a family trying to look more monied than they were, creating a Hollywood set on the first floor while leaving floors unfinished and fires unlit above. But 3 full pages? No. And insult to injury: In nearly 600 pages we know almost nothing of Lillian. Maybe some of the space dedicated to describing floors, and courtroom walls, flowers, tchotchkes, and rugs could have been spent making one of the book's central characters into an actual person? Frances is the only character we get to know, and she is beautifully drawn. But Lillian is an empty sack. At very least we should be able to see her through Frances' eyes, to see what she might have fallen in love with. We don't. She seems rather average, rather tacky, rather dull, rather selfish. It would have been nice to know more about Chrissy as well, since that relationship and its end were so much a part of Frances' connection to Lillian. So I guess the book was both overwritten and underwritten. But even so, it was clear that Waters is a writer of exceptional talent.I love spare prose, but I also love lush ripe prose done well. Waters' prose is gorgeous. When she is at her best her words are positively synesthetic. I am reading words, but I I can see and smell what I am reading, can feel the brush of flesh against my own. And the sex! I often complain that literary sex scenes are terrible and utterly non-erotic. Not so here. If they are non-erotic it is because the sex is bad, but when the sex is good it is hot and visceral and still literary. Few do this well - its masterful. This is my first Waters, but I will read more because if a writer can do that, I am a fan. I want to see that wondrous talent better deployed.Note, I listened to this book, and Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful narrator.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Thoroughly charming! Waters' prose is - as always - exquisite but this novel takes her command of storytelling to a new level. The tonal shift midway through the book is shocking, resetting our expectations and turning the book into something different entirely. Captivating stuff for lovers of historical fiction, queer fiction, and plain good writing.
    A grand audiobook, incidentally, as recorded by Juliet Stevenson.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's a brillianty written book!, I don't know why doesn't everyone likes it!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Thought I'd like this book more than I did - I read Tipping the Velvet a long time ago and really like it. But this fell flat for me. I never really felt the attraction between Frances and Lily, the paying guest; and the expected tension such a relationship,especially for Lily in those Victorian times, was never developed.And the murder and the trial sections were just boring, I'm afraid.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This 2014 novel is the first I have read by this author, who was born in 1966 in Wales but lives in London.. The story is surprisingly engrossing and reads very smoothly and is told very straight-forwardly. I was surprised by my reaction to the fictional account. The prime characters are not admirable but since they are the focus of the novel I found myself hoping that they would not suffer the fate they objectively deserved. The novel is laid in 1922 London, and seems very carefully to reflect the time and the place. There is a lot of tension and one is nail-bitingly concerned as to what will happen. The legal procedure is clearly not described by a lawyer, and folk who think of smart English police work may be appalled by the investigation detailed in the story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit. Set in England in 1922, the story follows Frances, a 26 year old self-prescribed "spinster" who lives with her elderly mother. Due to their diminishing income, they decide to take in a young married couple as lodgers. As their lives begin to intertwine, a passionate relationship develops and Frances finds herself subject to secrets, both romantic and deadly, of her own and of her "paying guests." This was my first novel from Sarah Waters, and it is clear that she excels in both character development and narrative. This is a hearty book, over 500 pages, and yet I found myself zipping through it in only a couple days. I will admit it probably could've been ~50-100 pages less... but that being said, it is definitely an enjoyable read. It isn't particularly fast paced, but the way Waters handles complex characters with intriguing interior motives and conflicts is worth reading. This is absolutely one of those books that will have you question, "What would I do?" particularly in the second half. I'm definitely interested in reading more by Waters, particularly those novels that are even better reviewed (such as Fingersmith).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't ask for books to review unless I'm familiar with the author's work, it has an amazing premise, and/or recommended highly by a friend. Sarah Waters' latest fell under the first two reasons. Fingersmith and The Little Stranger are books I have in my library (for a reason) and I am so glad I can now add The Paying Guests.Historical fiction lovers will NOT be disappointed and I highly recommend that you not only check into this book, but the other two I mentioned.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Heavy on description, quite austere, no usual twists like other Waters books.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i enjoyed this book mainly for its historical context.the author brought to life the austerity after ww1 and the desperation of men returning home from war to high unemployment.these men with or without physical or mental illnesses had suffered the devastating impact of death and destruction that wars like ww1 brought into their lives..the comparison the author makes between the three women in the novel is interesting. the older, dependent mother who lives an unreal past. the practical, single daughter who lives in the real now and the young, married dependent princess like female. these three would never had met if circumstances were different. however, the younger women's affair, the accidental death and the following court case make an intriguing historical, detective novel read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book was totally unexpected, and impossible to set a genre for. It's not quite romantic suspense or historical fiction. There is a suspense element but it's one where everything is known right from the beginning so the suspense is really just seeing how things are going to play out. It does have a romantic element for sure, and a tragic one at that, but the two people involved in the romance are of the same sex. Frances is a young woman who lives with her mother. Their family lost their two sons in the Great War and the father of the family died at home during the war. Frances and her mother are trying to scrape by in post war London as they are in very tightened financial circumstances. In order to try to make ends meet they have made three or four rooms in their old house into a live-in suite and are ready, when the book opens, to welcome their new lodgers to their new home. The couple is a young married couple by the name of Leonard and Lilian Barbour. The two ladies know that their lives are going to change forever once these strangers move in, but neither guesses just how much change and heartache is coming into their lives. The time is 1922 London so that is the historical element, but the book really doesn't go into many historical elements. It is about people and the problems and difficulties that we all experience at various times in our lives no matter what the year is and no matter what age we are. I found the book slow to start, but it got better after the first third. I had almost put it aside at one point because it appeared to not be going anywhere, but I persevered and it did get better. But, having said that, I found the ending unsatisfactory and with nothing resolved. Unfortunately, this is the second or third book that I've read recently where I did not care for the characters.None of them had any redeeming qualities, The only character that I felt any affinity for at all was Chef Inspector Lamb. He seemed more real and much more likeable than any of the main characters in the book. The best that I can say about the book is that was different and fairly well written, but I don't think I can recommend this book.