‘Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms – as something like two great waddling shillings. After that there was a silence, broken only by the occasional echoey plink of drips from the tap… “There came the splash of water and the rub of heels as Mrs Barber stepped into the tub. Frances is clearly drawn to something in Lillian early on – which for a time she has to hide. Lillian is a fashionable young woman, a little enigmatic and I didn’t feel I got to know her as well as Frances – in fact as things progress Lillian becomes rather needy and unlikeable. The couple who move in are rather different to Frances and her mother, Lillian and Leonard Barber, a modern, young couple of what is known as the ‘clerk class.’ Leonard is a friendly, chatty young man full of confidence for his future. However, they can have no idea how devasting and far reaching these new disturbances will become. The large silent house is silent no longer and Frances and her mother have to get used to new sounds and unfamiliar presences. Having strangers in the house is a difficult thing to reconcile themselves to – Frances’ mother finds it particularly hard. Financially things have got harder, and the two women are forced to reorganise the house – freeing up three rooms on the first floor to let out to paying guests. Frances’ father is dead, and both her brothers were killed in the war. Once the house would have been cared for by servants, now Frances does all the cooking and housework, while her mother continues to live as genteelly as she can. Frances Wray and her mother live in a large house in Camberwell. It is 1922, everywhere are echoes of the war that so blighted Europe, young men jobless and full of grievance lurk on street corners and in families like the Wrays there is a gaping hole.

Despite being very nearly 600 pages, I found myself flying through The Paying Guests.

This was only the third Sarah Waters book I’ve read – and if nothing else she is a fabulous storyteller – though her writing and characterisation are equally as good too. That feels longer ago now that it actually is – but not so long that I can’t remember what a compelling immersive novel it was.

I am a little behind in my reviewing as I have mentioned before – in fact I realise that I started reading The Paying Guests on Christmas Eve.

The paying guests by sarah waters