Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrativeThis 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 womens ward of Millbank prison, Victorian Londons grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbanks murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a sance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selinas 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 Selinas 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.
