Sarah Waters

From an award-winning author, Fingersmith is an extraordinary, ingenious tale of fraud, insanity and secrets. London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves—fingersmiths—under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her 'family'. But from the moment Sue draws breath, her fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion...

From the oyster huts of Whitstable to the music halls of Victorian London, Tipping the Velvet is the glorious first novel from this much-loved author. 'Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that...

An eerily brilliant and spooky tale of spiritualism and deception. 'Now you know why you are drawn to me - why your flesh comes creeping to mine, and what it comes for. Let it creep.' From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? By the...

‘Sarah Waters' masterly novel is gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining’ - Hilary Mantel In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with...

The number one bestseller, a tender and tragic story set against the turbulence of wartime London. The Night Watch is the extraordinary story of four Londoners: Kay, who wanders the streets in mannish clothes, restless and searching; Helen, who harbours a troubling secret; Viv, a glamour girl, recklessly loyal to her soldier lover; and Duncan, an apparent innocent, struggling with...

'A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change' Guardian It is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the 'clerk class',...

'Intelligent, witty and stylish' Independent 'Everyone's appetites will be satisfied' Elle Magazine 'Waters is an author to cherish' Guardian Celebrating five decades of the feminist publisher, each of the Five Gold Reads represents an iconic moment in Virago's history, from the 1970s to today. Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in...

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is a captivating historical crime novel set in Victorian England. The story deftly intertwines the lives of Sue Trinder, a young orphan raised amongst thieves, and Maud Lilly, another orphan living a seemingly isolated life in a grand but oppressive mansion. Born into a world of deception and thievery at Lant Street, Sue is taught the...