Fingersmith

Totally immersive with brilliantly drawn characters… a page-turning thriller while managing to be a tender love story * Adam Kay *Intensely atmospheric, impeccably paced, and cunningly structured, this is that rarity in contemporary fiction: a deeply serious novel that is also a thumping great read – Douglas Kennedy * Mail on Sunday *There are always novels that you envy people for not having read yet, for the pleasure they still have to come. Well, this is one. Long, dark, twisted and satisfying, it’s a fabulous piece of writing… An unforgettable experience – Julie Myerson * Guardian *One of the best twists of any book, one that lifts the novel from a brilliant piece of modern Victoriana to something altogether more original and daring… Fingersmith, like so many great books, calls into question our desire to fit novels into restrictive boxes… If you like a great story, brilliantly told, you’ll love this book – Laura Shepherd-Robinson * The Times *A chilling, ingenious erotic thriller - unputdownable * Sunday Express *She distils a slice of London Victoriana, involving pickpockets, orphans and identity, into a fantastic plot and handles the story so well that you just can’t wait to get to the end * Tracy Chevalier *High spirited and utterly compelling – Robert McCrum * Observer *Serious entertainment… One of the most startling plot twists you’ll ever read – Nick Hornby * The Times *A thrillerish plot, fast-moving with umpteen cunning twists, it is inhabited by richly human characters whose fortunes instantly engage the reader * Sunday Telegraph *Fingersmith’s tight and intricate plotting and full-flavour characters follow in a fine tradition of gothic storytelling, full of love, villains and intrigue – Jane Perry * Observer *This disquietingly twisted tale will engross – Isobel Montgomery * Guardian *Deliciously brazen… A smart and seductive enchantment * Los Angeles Times *Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs * Travis Elborough *Oliver Twist with a twist… Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses… A pulsating story * New York Times Book Review *Superb storytelling. Fingersmith is gripping; so suspenseful and twisting is the plot that for the last 250 pages, I read at breakneck speed * USA Today *A deftly plotted thriller… absorbing and elegant * Entertainment Weekly *A marvelous pleasure… Waters’s noted attention to historical detail and her beautifully sensitive dialogue help to anchor the force-five plot twisters * Washington Post *Calls to mind the feverishly gloomy haunts of Charlotte and Emily Bronte… Elaborate and satisfying * Seattle Times *A richly woven tale of duplicity and passion… nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters’s virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured period detail. This is a marvelous novel * Kirkus *A sweeping read * Boston Globe *Astonishing narrative twists * Newsday *

Sarah Waters, who was born in Wales, has been described as ‘one of the best storytellers alive today’. There can be no doubt that readers and critics alike have been gripped by her extraordinary imagination. Sarah Waters’ first novel, Tipping the Velvet, won a Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her next novel, Affinity, won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award while Fingersmith and The Night Watch were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. The former also won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature. The Little Stranger was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and The Paying Guests was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize in 2015. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith and The Night Watch have all been adapted for television, The Little Stranger was adapted as a film by Lenny Abrahamson, and Fingersmith inspired Park Chan-wook’s film, The Handmaiden. Sarah Waters has been named Author of the Year five times: by the British Book Awards, The Booksellers’ Association, Waterstone’s Booksellers, Glamour Magazine Awards and the Stonewall Awards. In 2019 she was awarded an OBE for services to literature.