It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work are demanding change. And in a genteel house in the south of the city, its inhabitants still recovering from the devastating losses of the First World War, life is about to be transformed.
Widowed Mrs Wray and her daughter, Frances - an unmarried woman with an interesting past, now on her way to becoming a spinster - find themselves obliged to take in lodgers.
The arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a young couple of the 'clerk class', brings unsettling things with it: gramophone music, colour, fun. Open doors offer Frances glimpses of the newcomers' habits, and the staircase and landing have never seemed to her so busy.
As she and Lilian are drawn into an unexpected friendship, loyalties begin to shift. Secrets are confessed, dangerous desires admitted; the most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama.
A love story that is also a crime story, this is vintage Sarah Waters: nail-biting tension, real tenderness, believable characters, and surprises.

FINDER OF THIS BOOK:
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Sent to meganh as an Australasian Wishlist tag - Please enjoy the suspense of this release in Rainbow Pride Month! :D

Arrived today, thank you so much for sending this “tome” across the ditch. Taken off my Wishlist and onto Mt TBR it goes.

Decided to tackle this book and I was quickly drawn into the fast paced story of love and crime.
Surprised that it was written in 2014, it read very much like it’s setting of 1920’s London.
Very genteel in it’s descriptions of the everyday life of spinster daughter and her widowed once well heeled mother. They both formed differing opinions of the lodging couple Leonard and Lilian they took in to make ends meet. Friendship developed between the two young women and soon the story became one of intrigue as friendship grew to love. Their impossible love was severely tested when a crime of passion was committed and the second half of the book leads us into murky waters as their secret relationship is tested to breaking point.
Sparse in it’s language and very readable. First book I have read by Sarah Waters and I will seek her writing out again.

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Interesting read, author tries to mix romance with crime, while she does succeed in writing a good read, I didn't really enjoy it. Taking to Junes Templestowe meetup

I have a few rules when it comes to books. One of them is never to bring home a book by an author if I already have one of their other books on Mt TBR.

I have just broken that rule.