Sarah Waters (1) (1966–)

from The Guardian:

So much for openers. Waters's breakthrough into the mainstream came in 2002 with Fingersmith (more Victorian slang - for a pickpocket, and also a midwife - gravid with sexual innuendo), which was shortlisted for both Orange and Man Booker. Kate Mosse, bestselling author of Labyrinth and Sepulchre, says: "It's contemporary Gothic, something few writers - contemporary or classic - ever pull off." A year later, in another critical coup, she was nominated for Granta's fashionable top 20, the Best of Young British. Other critics have noticed that Waters also takes inspiration from Angela Carter, Philippa Gregory and AS Byatt. Mosse again: "Her research is lightly worn, but utterly trustworthy, and she has an authenticity of historical voice that never falters. She's never showy, yet her writing is rich and inventive, the stuff of treats."

Fidelis Morgan, who writes the Countess Ashby de la Zouche series (The Rival Queens, Fortune's Slave, etc) and also transforms racy historical research into ripping yarns, notes that "Fingersmith is an intoxicating novel with a twist so astonishing it made me gasp aloud. The clever part is that it makes you have to rewind the whole book and reassess each character." Another powerful advocate for Waters's writing, the novelist Philip Hensher says she has made "a great link between the secrecy of queer sexualities and the secrets and revelations of the Gothic tradition. I think she's a big feminine novelist in the large-scale English ensemble tradition of Rosamund Lehmann, Elizabeth Bowen and especially Elizabeth Taylor." http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/10/books-sarah-waters

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Dr. Faraday, a local GP in a Warwickshire town, is called out to tend to a sick housemaid at the local manor house, Hundreds Hall. There he meets the Ayres family, the last of a noble line, and sees their once-beautiful estate fallen to ruins through impoverishment and neglect. A relationship forms between Faraday and the Ayres family, and he becomes both doctor and guest to the widowed mother and her two surviving children, who are in their twenties.

Terrible and inexplicable tragedies occur at Hundreds Hall. Injuries, death, and madness plague the family and their guests. Sarah Waters is a dab hand at invoking atmosphere, and much like Shirley Jackson's Hill House, the building itself becomes a place of tension, fear, and power. The book is creepy, not a book to be read when one is alone at night, and it is a well-narrated tale that genuinely captures the essence of its characters.

I would have given the book more stars were I not dissatisfied with the ending, about which I will say nothing more. It's a good book for anyone who likes spine-tingling tales.… (more)