by Sarah Waters
First published 2014
In the tense, post-war London of 1922, impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter Frances are forced to take in lodgers to make ends meet. The arrival of the modern, "clerk class" couple Lilian and Leonard Barber upends the quiet routines of the Wray household, as passions ignite and long-held frustrations boil over. As the boundaries between landlord and tenant, middle and working class, begin to blur, no one can predict the devastating fallout.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adult-fiction, british-literature
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, forbidden-romance
Setting: London
Period: 1922
599 pages · Paperback · Virago