\'A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change\' GuardianIt is 1922, and in a hushed south London villa life is about to be transformed, as genteel widow Mrs Wray and her discontented daughter Frances are obliged to take in lodgers. Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the \'clerk class\', bring with them gramophone music, colour, fun - and dangerous desires. The most ordinary of lives, it seems, can explode into passion and drama... A love story that is also a crime story, this is vintage Sarah Waters.\'Another wild ride of a novel... magnetic storytelling\' Tracy Chevalier, Observer\'You will be hooked within a page\' Charlotte Mendelson, Financial Times\'Sumptuous... the writing is impeccable. A joy in every respect\' New Statesman\'An unsurpassed fictional recorder of vanished eras and hidden lives\' Sunday Times