The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Set in London in 1922 and told from the point of view of Frances Wray, a woman in her twenties.  The story conveys the aftermath of war, how the class system is changing and how women are seizing these changes.  Frances would dearly love to be one of these women, but her sense of duty to her mother keeps her tied to the family home.  Her father has died and she has lost her beloved brothers in the war.  The Wrays are struggling to make ends meet.  They can no longer afford the luxury of servants and the daily chores of running the house falls to Frances.  We feel her resentment towards her father for his bad management of the family affairs.  Frances persuades her mother to take in some lodgers and the story begins with the arrival of Mr & Mrs Barber, a lively couple in their twenties.  At first the house feels strange with its new occupants and there are embarrassing moments when the daily minutia is played out such as accessing the outside toilet, but the bills have to be paid and the money is useful.  Frances is attracted to the colourful flighty Mrs Barber and, before long, the two become unlikely friends.  I liked the character of Frances – a woman keen to explore her sexuality, but reluctant to abandon her mother.  The descriptions are rich and vivid and I was easily transported to the place and time.    

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

This was shortlisted for the Man Booker Price 2009.  I don’t normally read ghost stories, but this one caught my eye.  The prose is beautiful and the characters realistically drawn.  The story centres around a crumbling Georgian mansion called Hundreds Hall in rural Warwickshire.  Its owners, mother, son and daughter are struggling to keep the house running.  Times are changing, this is post war Britain and the once grand house is now in steep decline.  Dr Faraday is called out to the house to see a servant girl who has been taken ill.  He has visited the house once before, on Empire Day Fete, when he was ten years old.  His mother used to work at the house many years before.   He is shocked by the state of the house and its inhabitants.  Then mysterious things start to happen and Dr Faraday gets more and more entwined with the family’s lives.   I won’t spoil it for you!  Well worth a read and one of those stories that stays with you.