by The Ghosty Gal

Created on: March 31, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

I've read this amazing story of lies, desire, pain and secrets over, and over, and over. It is really hard for me to pick a favorite book, because I have so many.

This captivating, beautifully crafted book has earned Sarah Waters the title of "the modern Charles Dickens" or Wilkie Collins. Its gripping, multilayered plot transports us feeling around the dark back alleys, gloomy mansions, pornographic libraries, lunatic asylums, and prisons and scaffolds of Victorian England. As in Dickens, the sights sounds of the Victorian underworld are brought to life in this vast, seductive novel.

The story begins in 1862 in London's Lant Street, where a teenage Sue Trinder lives under the care and tutelage of Mrs. Sucksby and her family of farmed babies and thieves; but there is a great deal of warmth in this vibrant city womb. By contrast, many miles away another orphan, shy and lonely Maud Lilly, lives captive to her seedy uncle in a cavernous bleak house. Hers might be described as a privileged, wealthy, upbringing, but it is isolated, devoid of love, and exploitative-she is even forced to read pornographic books. As the twists, turns, and shocks of this disturbing tale unravel from the viewpoints of both Sue and Maud, we discovered that the lives of these two young women are intertwined and that they are enmeshed in a painful web of lies, deceit, and fraud outside their control. Murder is the only escape.

Waters paints a moving picture of the evolving relationship between Sue and Maud as it passes from one of mistress-servant, to one of kindness and comfort, to one incorporating charged scenes of mutual desire and love. At one level then, this is a fine Gothic tale incorporating lesbian romance, at another it is a Dickensian conspiracy at its best. Water's ability to craft an original plot is stunning.

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