Affinity, Sarah Waters

Evelyn Pickering De Morgan, Hope in the Prison of Despair

(June 1) Like Fingersmith, another well done twist... oh, Waters is good at making unreliable narrators seem reliable. Everything is so plausible. And this was a fascinating exposé of spiritualism. A little darker than Fingersmith in some ways -- different kind of dark, anyway... so interesting how one is quick to identify with a first-person narrator and see all her good points and empathize with her struggles, and ignore her weaknesses and illusions, even though they are all there for the observing.

Waters so authentically captures the way Victorians thought and expressed themselves. She has read a shit-ton of diaries, letters and novels of the period, fo sho.