Sunday 11 April 2010

Affinity - Sarah Waters

I'm a big fan of Sarah Waters' books. I love historical fiction, and her World War II book, The Night Watch, was one of the best books I've ever read. So when I spotted Affinity while browsing idly in WHSmith one day I decided to treat myself.

I wasn't disappointed. While it didn't knock The Night Watch off my top spot, it was hugely enjoyable and hard to put down. I found myself curled up out of the wind, beside a stream which fed into Buttermere lake, reading it last week. Was annoyed when the rest of the family wanted to get on with the walk.

It's a spooky tale of a Victorian spinster who becomes involved with a woman in Millbank prison. The woman's been convicted of assault - she's a spirit medium and something went wrong at one of her sittings, a girl got hurt and her patron died of a heart attack. As the story progresses and the spinster becomes more and more involved with the convict, you have to decide whether the ghostly happenings are real or fraudulent. You're sucked into liking the convict character, so you want to believe her, but is she for real?

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