New Releases by Sarah Waters

From the oyster huts of Whitstable to the music halls of Victorian London, Tipping the Velvet is the glorious first novel from this much-loved author ''Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.'' A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End ''tom''. ''Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power'' New York Times Book Review ''An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaries Nineties'' Independent on Sunday ''Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit'' Observer

“What a wonderful collection! Each story is like a little treasure just waiting to be unwrapped, bringing its own unique and engaging perspective to the Austen mythos. A real treat for Jane Austen fans.” —Syrie James, bestselling author of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen and Dracula, My Love Dancing with Mr. Darcy is a sterling collection of short stories inspired by beloved novelist Jane Austen and Chawton House, her longtime home. Edited by Sarah Waters, a bestselling author shortlisted for Great Britain’s Booker Prize, this exceptional anthology features the winning entries in the Jane Austen Short Story Award 2009, a literary competition which celebrates the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s arrival in the village of Chawton, where she spent the most productive years of her writing life. Any reader who’s been captivated by Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, or the other unforgettable excursions into Austen’s literary world will find Dancing with Mr. Darcy an unparalleled delight.

Sue Trinder, una joven huérfana de diecisiete años que vive en el Londres más salvaje, protegida por la señora Sucksby, la gran madre de una dickensiana comunidad de delincuentes, es enviada a una mansión en el campo como doncella de la joven Maud Lilly

Soon to be a major motion picture, directed by Lenny Abrahamson and starring Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson. "The #1 book of 2009...Several sleepless nights are guaranteed."—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

The story of a "girl-in-trousers" in 1890s England. She is a lesbian fishmonger who gains entry into the libertine world of music halls by an affair with a singer, becoming her partner in a cross-dressing show. But drama follows when the other goes straight.

«Sarah Waters deja atrás las interioridades de la sociedad victoriana de sus celebradas novelas anteriores y las reemplaza por un sencillo y sincero estudio de la alienación provocada por la guerra... Ronda nocturna es un libro emotivo y maravilloso que no necesita trucos de magia para querer leerlo por segunda vez» (Philip Hensher, The Observer). «El retrato que Waters hace del bombardeo de Londres es soberbio... Una novela repleta de matices, inteligente y generosa. Sarah Waters es una autora a celebrar, y esta novela es, muy probablemente, su mayor logro hasta la fecha» (Justine Jordan, The Guardian). «Hay que destacar el sentido del detalle y la descripción precisa y justa de Ronda nocturna, que proporcionan una textura de polvo y ceniza a esta suntuosa novela de amor y arrepentimiento» (Christine Rousseau, Le Monde). «Todo un logro. La meticulosa recreación de Waters sitúa al lector, emocional y físicamente, en la vorágine del Blitz londinense... Un maravilloso tratado sobre la fragilidad del amor y lo efímero de la felicidad» (J. Harding, Daily Mail). Inglaterra se recupera lentamente de los intensos bombardeos nazis durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Poco a poco Londres vuelve a la normalidad. Entre sus habitantes se encuentran los personajes de esta novela coral, cuyas vidas se entrelazan azarosamente. Ronda nocturna, la última y celebrada novela de Sarah Waters, nos cuenta la vida de cuatro jóvenes londinenses durante el Blitz y la dura posguerra: el atribulado Duncan, su insatisfecha hermana Viv, la compañera de trabajo de ésta, Helen, fatalmente enamorada, y la ex enfermera Kay, siempre en busca de un nuevo amor. La acción se sitúa en 1947, 1944 y 1941: retrocediendo en el tiempo iremos descubriendo exactamente en qué medida afectó la experiencia de la guerra a estos personajes y, poco a poco, se irá revelando la verdadera naturaleza de sus comportamientos y actitudes actuales, así como la dimensión del laberinto sentimental en el que están atrapados y las inesperadas relaciones existentes entre ellos o con personajes de su pasado. La guerra supuso el fin de su inocencia, es la frontera que separa su aún cercana juventud de una madurez sobrevenida entre bombardeos y cupones de racionamiento. Los secretos que albergan conectan sus vidas de maneras a veces insospechadas... Además de una conmovedora historia de amor y traición en tiempos de guerra, en Ronda nocturna Sarah Waters nos habla de los sueños rotos de toda una generación y realiza una certera disección de las costumbres y la moral de la sociedad británica de posguerra.

Dans un Londres écrasé par le feu du Blitz se cache une autre guerre, celle des amours illicites, des trahisons et des espoirs ; brisés. Quel fantôme du passé hante Helen qui subit, désemparée, le lent délitement de sa liaison interdite avec Julia ? Pour quelles raisons Kay erre-t-elle désormais, inconsolable, dans les rues de la ville ? Pourquoi Viv, une jeune femme douce et glamour, ne parvient-elle pas à quitter son amant, un ancien soldat marié et père de famille ? La guerre a brassé ces destins qui avancent à tâtons pour reprendre leurs marques. Et pour beaucoup d''entre eux, la voie du bonheur dans un monde enfin apaisé va être aussi dangereuse qu''un tapis de bombes.

“[A] wonderful novel…Waters is almost Dickensian in her wealth of description and depth of character.”—Chicago Tribune Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit partying, and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch tells the story of four Londoners—three women and a young man with a past—whose lives, and those of their friends and lovers, connect in tragedy, stunning surprise and exquisite turns, only to change irreversibly in the shadow of a grand historical event.

TIPPING THE VELVET: Nan is captivated by the music hall phenomenon that is Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. She becomes Kitty''s dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they start an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins. AFFINITY: An eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing literary mystery and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale. FINGERSMITH: Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, is born among petty thieves - fingersmiths - in London''s Borough. From the moment she draws breath, her fate is linked to another orphan, growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away...

1862. Lant Street, Londres. Le rendez-vous des voleurs et des receleurs. Sue Trinder, orpheline, est confiée dès le berceau aux bons soins d''une trafiquante de nourrissons. À la veille de ses dix-huit ans, un élégant, surnommé Gentleman, lui propose d''escroquer une héritière, Maud Lilly. Orpheline elle aussi, cette dernière est élevée dans un lugubre manoir par son oncle, collectionneur de livres d''un genre tout particulier. Sue, en entrant au service de la riche jeune fille, tombe avec ingénuité dans un piège. Enveloppée par une atmosphère saturée de mystère et de passions souterraines, elle devra déjouer les complots les plus délicieusement cruels, afin de devenir, avec le concours de la belle demoiselle de Briar, une légende parmi les cercles interlopes de la bibliophilie érotique. Héritière moderne de Dickens, mais aussi de Sapho et des Libertins, Sarah Waters nous offre une vision clandestine de l''Angleterre victorienne, un envers du décor où les héroïnes, de mariages secrets en amours interdites, ne se conduisent jamais comme on l''attendrait. Un roman décadent, virtuose, où les ressorts les plus noirs de l''univers romanesque du XIXe se mêlent au réalisme incisif et décomplexé du XXIe siècle.

Nancy, jeune vendeuse d''huîtres sur la côte du Kent, voit sa vie basculer lorsqu''elle tombe amoureuse de Kitty, une chanteuse de music-hall aux allures de dandy. Bien décidée à vivre sa passion, Nancy la suit à Londres et s''embarque pour une incroyable épopée dans le West End, quartier énigmatique et inquiétant qui ne prend tout son sens que sous les feux de la rampe._x000D_ _x000D_ « Câlins et caresses compensent la dureté de l''Angleterre victorienne, et cette éducation sentimentale au féminin conjugue pudeur et impudeur avec une incroyable virtuosité. Chapeau pour un premier roman. »_x000D_ Alexis Liebaert, Elle_x000D_ _x000D_ Traduit de l''anglais_x000D_ par Erika Abrams _x000D_

“Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrative…This is gripping, astute fiction that feeds the mind and senses.”—The Seattle Times An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own. As in her noteworthy deput, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters brilliantly evokes the sights and smells of a moody and beguiling nineteenth-century London, and proves herself yet again a storyteller, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, of "startling power."

Animal world is full of danger. Many animals have intriguing ways to protect themselves.

Orphaned as an infant, Susan Trinder was raised by Mrs. Sucksby, ''mother'' to a host of pickpockets and con artists. To pay her debt, she joins legendary thief Gentleman in swindling an innocent woman out of her inheritence.