Tag Archives: Sarah Waters

Great Opening Paragraph 129 ‘The Paying Guests’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“The Barbers had said they would arrive by three. It was like waiting to begin a journey, Frances thought. She and her mother had spent the morning watching the clock, unable to relax. At half past two she had gone wistfully over the rooms for what she’d supposed was the final time; after that there had been a nerving-up, giving way to a steady deflation, and now, at almost five, here she was again, listening to the echo of her own footsteps, feeling so sort of fondness for the sparsely furnished spaces, impatient simply for the couple to arrive, move in, get it over with.”
Sarah WatersFrom ‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters

Read my review of THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters.

Here are two more #FirstParas by Sarah Waters:-
AFFINITY
TIPPING THE VELVET

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte
’Personal’ by Lee Child
‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE PAYING GUESTS  by Sarah Waters https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4eA via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 112… ‘Affinity’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“3 August 1873. I was never so frightened as I am now. They have left me sitting in the dark, with only the light from the window to write by. They have put me in my own room, they have locked the door on me. They wanted Ruth to do it, but she would not. She said ‘What, do you want me to lock up my own mistress, who has done nothing?’ In the end the doctor took the key from her & locked the door himself, then made her leave me. Now the house is full of voices, all saying my name. If I close my eyes & listen it might be any ordinary night. I might be waiting for Mrs Brink to come & take me down to a dark circle, & Madeleine or any girl might be there, blushing, thinking of Peter, of Peter’s great dark whiskers & shining hands.’
Sarah WatersFrom ‘Affinity’ by Sarah Waters

Here are two more #FirstParas by Sarah Waters:-
THE PAYING GUESTS
TIPPING THE VELVET

Read my review of THE PAYING GUESTS.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Illywhacker’ by Peter Carey
‘Sophie’s World’ by Jostein Gaarder
‘Goldfinger’ by Ian Fleming

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara AFFINITY by Sarah Waters http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qR via @SandraDanby

Great Opening Paragraph 94… ‘Tipping the Velvet’ #amreading #FirstPara

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“Have you ever tasted a Whitstable oyster? If you have, you will remember it. Some quirk of the Kentish coastline makes Whitstable natives – as they are properly called – the largest and the juiciest, the savouriest yet the subtlest, oysters in the whole of England. Whitstable oysters are, quite rightly, famous. The French, who are known for their sensitive palates, regularly cross the Channel for them; they are shipping, in barrels of ice, to the dining-tables of Hamburg and Berlin. Why, the King himself, I heard, makes special trips to Whitstable with Mrs Keppel, to eat oyster suppers in a private hotel; and as for the old Queen – she dined on a native a day [or so they say] till the day she died.”
Sarah WatersFrom ‘Tipping the Velvet’ by Sarah Waters

Here are two more #FirstParas by Sarah Waters:-
AFFINITY
THE PAYING GUESTS

Read my review of THE PAYING GUESTS.

Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Mara and Dann’ by Doris Lessing
‘Lucky You’ by Carl Hiasson
‘Middlesex’ by Jeffrey Eugenides

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara TIPPING THE VELVET by Sarah Waters http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2lj via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters #historical

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Sarah Waters is one of my favourite authors, I await each new book with delicious anticipation. I waited a while for this one, The Paying Guests was a Christmas present and I started reading it about an hour after unwrapping it. Sarah WatersI wasn’t disappointed. Waters has written a ‘closed room’ mystery with a bit of romance and crime thrown in, all in the post-Great War context of women’s rights, abandoned soldiers and the corset of social manners. Mrs Wray and her daughter Frances have fallen on hard times, in order to pay off debts left after the death of Frances’ father, they rent out the upstairs of their house to lodgers. Except they don’t call Mr and Mrs Barber their lodgers, they are ‘paying guests’. Waters puts these four strangers together and mixes it a little, waiting to see what happens. They bump into each other on the landing, on the stairs, in the kitchen on the way to the outside lavatory, in their dressing gowns, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. They circle around each other according to the parameters of social behaviour. And all the time, Waters turns the screw slowly, tightening, until the buttoned-down feelings break free. Then all hell breaks loose.
I loved this book, the characters are drawn with such care and I could see this divided house as if looking at a photograph.

Read the first paragraph of THE PAYING GUESTS.

If you like this, try:-
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall
‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PAYING GUESTS by Sarah Waters http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1s3 via @Sandra Danby