Tipping the Velvet

I stumbled upon this novel purely by accident. However once I started reading I just couldn't put it down. Never have I read the raw emotion of a first crush from a girl described with such perfection that I felt my own breast pull tight with feeling. I felt I walked the streets with Nan, laughed in innocent wonder as she laughed and felt the heart rendering sobs as she did. To anyone who has ever had to come out, this story captures the mystery, wonder, fear and thrill with absolute perfection. I read the entire novel in four days. Every break at work I spent with my kindle and for four nights I stayed up till my eyes could hold fast no longer. Definitely recommend!

This book was okay, but not as entertaining as her other books. The plot seemed to go around in circles, and the lead character became a bit of a drag about 3/4 of the way through the book. Her writing is always good, and the descriptions are quite vivid. I will continue to admire her as one of my favorite writers, but this story seemed pathetic and whiny in parts.

I love Sarah Waters' novels. They stay with you after you read them. Her characters are alive and credible. The settings really let you live the times and in the places, in this case, London in the turn of the century.

I loved this book and the author's writing voice. But I thought it was quite funny that the reviews kept referring to this book as a "Lesbian novel" and a "Lesbian love story" as if that is so abnormal. I think all of that derives from heteronormativity, of course, and I know that there are oppositions to their love in the book, as well, which means that their love in the world that they live in isn't very accepted or considered "normal," but in our world, it should be.

An excellent example of lesbian literature detailing the story of Nan who is trying to find her true self and love along the way. All set in the hideously judgemental and vile victorian era. It cuts through any Victorian Era romanticism to the true nature of the time. It is a gripping book that you will want to finish.

Really an outstanding piece of writing, but it is discusses many difficult social issues that make the book very sad. I also watched the movie and it was excellent. The casting for the movie was right on. The actors in the movie were exactly as I had pictured them in my mind as I was reading the book.

Tipping the Velvet started out as the next book I wanted to read and turned into a bit of an obsession. It's a beautifully written novel from master story teller Sarah Waters. I felt like I was transported back in time to 1889 Victorian London.

The main character, Nan Astley is an innocent 18!year old girl-but all that changes one night at the theatre when she watches male impersonator "Kitty Butler" perform. Suddenly Nan's life changes forever and the stirrings she feels for Kitty can't be undone. What started as friendship turns to love, heartbreak and romance!
After reading the book- I highly reccomend the BBC 3 part movie of the same title. Happy Reading!

Such a poetic and honesty story about a young woman discovering herself in so many ways, through so many experiences. I was captivated from start to finish and held my breath until the last word was spent.
At times, I feared that Nancy's life would not get any better, that her life was destined for failure and heartbreak. Something came along every time to prove me wrong and set me straight.
A wonderful read. I will be reading it again, again, and again.

Brilliant, captivating, and beautifully written. I have only just discovered Sara Waters and she is rapidly climbing the ladder of my favorite authors. I was hooked and awed from the first line to the last. Bravo, Ms. Waters. I envy your talent.

After taking into consideration the amount of 4 star reveiws, I decided to order the book and give Sarah Waters a try. The book starts off with alot of detail description, which is wonderful. It actually pulls you into the story as if your were actually standing in the room with the characters. As I continue to and as of this date I am currently on page 275 and cannot seem to get back into the book. I guess so to speak this is the book down time.

This is the first book I have read by this author and from all the reveiws I totally agree with the 2 & 3 stars. I guess I will start to read again.

I couldn't connect with the characters - there was no one that I was rooting for. The setting and many of the premises of the storyline seemed unbelievable. Many people love this book - it just wasn't for me.

"Have you ever tasted a Whitstable oyster?" No, talented novelist Sarah Waters, I have not, but with your opening sentence in TIPPING THE VELVET you have masterfully and succesffully transported me from the barren prairies of America to the succulent shores of 19th Century England.

A love story, a coming of age story, a gender-bending head-scratching tale of lust and loss, this novel takes the reader on a heady, haughty, naughty ride through late Victorian-era England. When young Nancy Astley, a Whitstable "oyster girl," first sees the handsome Kitty Butler, dressed as a boy, entertaining at the local music hall, Nancy's life is changed forever. Realizing she has more than just a casual infatuation with the talented entertainer, Nancy abandons her family and accompanies Kitty to London, where the two of them become inseparable--in every sense of the word. But alas, Nancy has left herself incredibly vulnerable, and when the inevitable pain and sorrow of heartbreak confront her, she goes off on her own for a mind-boggling series of adventures that left me chuckling, or sucking in my breath, with each turned page.

This book has been labeled as "lesbian erotica," but I found the story to be much broader than that (Waters is simply too gifted a writer). Granted, had Nancy been a "Neville," and Kitty a "Kirk," with both characters exploring their love, I would have been more than a tad bit uncomfortable, so the feminine point of view worked very well for this old bloke, I assure you. But even more remarkable than the titillating erotica was Waters' extraordinary ability to recreate--via her impressive, sweeping prose--the sights, sounds, smells of London in the "Gay Nineties." From "tom" to "tony," from "masher" to "saucy," the reader is completely and delightfully immersed in the slang, the jargon, the behaviour of the historical period.

TIPPING THE VELVET is an exceptional debut novel. I give it less than five stars for two reasons: 1) the predictability of the plot; 2) the tiresome, Sinclair-istic endorsement of boring Socialism (Why, oh why, are most authors such handwringing leftists?). Despite my superficial misgivings, this is a novel to be reckoned with, by a writer to be reckoned with. Brilliantly written.

--D. Mikels

I liked the historical aspect to this novel...you don't find much about this era's homosexual underground in London, especially in fiction.

But as it went on, it went from a sweet love story to very pornographic material. I'm not a prude and don't hate on those who enjoy such writing, but it certainly cheapened this novel. It wasn't artfully done....just flat out porn. I got through to the end and felt disappointed with how it wrapped up.

I read this and Fingeersmith more or less together and I will repeat a fw observations I already made in the Fingersmith review.
I acknowledge that she has a prodigious talent. A terrific writing voice. A grand sense of detail. She CAN write sublimely well, and from time to time, she does it.
SO why did it take me *months* to trudge my dispiriting way through two of her novels ?
Well, let’s talk about sense of place, the research that went into these books. It is great, very extensive, extremely detailed. Unfortunately, having done all this research Ms Waters made sure that it *showed*. A lot. The Victorian background is brilliantly rendered in terrific detail. So much so that it ceases to be a background and comes to the forefront of every page, completely swallowing up the characters (never very interesting to begin with) and what little plot there is. It is not like living a slice of a story that happens to be set in Victorian times. It’s like being brought to a museum of Victoriana, and being made to stare at each exhibit for five whole minutes, and read every explanation panel to the last line. It’s exhausting, and very often it does absolutely nothing to bring the story forward. These are stories with zilch forward thrust. You just plod along, burdened and bewildered by so much detail (And I do love detailed descriptions!) that you lose any interest in what is going on, which is in any case not much.
There is not so much Victoriana in any genuine Victorian novel or journal I ever read. Not in Dickens, not the Brontes, not in Conrad or Stevenson…
Let’s take the example of chamber pots. Yes, the Victorians pissed in a pot. They didn’t have VCs like we have. **We get it, we all get it.** There is no need to bring it up twice per chapter. In Victorian books the chamber pots are never mentioned, the same way as in contemporary modern books you don’t constantly read about people going to the toilet, sitting on the seat and peeing and flushing. It’s just contributes nothing to the plot or the character development. The constant presence of chamber pots and smelly privies in SWs books is not part of the necessary setting. It’s a cheap thrill aimed a shocking an inanely squeamish readership.
It’s puerile and uninteresting, and really boring.
Meanwhile we have strange things like this budding prostitute giving blowjobs (at a street corner) for a sovereign (=1 pound) each. At this time you could have full intercourse in a bed for five shillings (1/4 of a pound), so it seems a little far-fetched and raises question marks about the accuracy of all this research we are made to take so seriously… 1 pound was a week’s wage for an average London labourer. Alexa Wilding, DG Rossetti’s favourite model was hired to sit exclusively for him for 2 pounds a week. While I do realize that a good BJ is quality entertainment, there is no realistic relation between these numbers. If you could have 1 pound for a beginner’s BJ, nobody would have worked at all. They would all have been lurking at street corners, sucking dicks like there’s no tomorrow.
One of the most pervasive presences in Victorian London, horses, is hardly ever mentioned. One would think that such a scat-obsessed writer would have made quite a fuss about all the ever present cattle and the manure everywhere, but, strangely, no. Again, it makes me suspect that the piddle and pot obsession is a bit of a silly ad captandum vulgus effect.

SW maybe an original writer (?) but she wallows, absolutely wallows in the threadbare convention that anyone who enjoys kinky sex, reads smutty books, or looks at pornographic pictures must be a villain. So far, in what I read, all her villains are fetishists.
I find this offensive as a person (liking dildoes and erotica does not make me evil) as a writer (writing erotica, again, does not make me evil), and as a reader (it’s sloppy, lazy, formulaic storytelling, and I find it reprehensible in something shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize etc)
At the same time, she goes and tries to write smut herself, and what a stupendously botched up job of it she does.It cracks me up that people refer to this book as erotica. Yes there are some appalling, mock-expicit sex scenes, but erotica is really something different. I say this not in praise of the book, but rather the contrary. I do agree that sex scenes in books can be heightened and emotional and aestethic, but having decided to write an explicit kinky sex scene in a “realistic” book (all that research, you know??), you should try to write something that can be attempted to be believed. But then we have a fisting scene that goes, one finger two fingers, then three and **after a second’s pressure** her whole hand up to the wrist. Woah! Lady, the fistee here is not a professional porn star, is a girl that hasn’t had intercourse in more than a year, and precious little before that. Have you ever had a whole hand pressed up into your privates? Perhaps you should try it before writing it, because this is inept to the point of being comical.
Most sex scenes are like this, a mix of audacious plans and hilariously, absolutely laughable, unrealistic execution. They pulled me so far out of the story that I kept loosing what little interest I had. It would have been much better to leave the sex unwritten, or keep it vague and poetic, which would fit her style much better (the one sex scene in Fingersmith is much better for being written that way). If you don’t want to get your hands dirty with believable mechanics, don’t try. And don’t use porn as research, for crying out loud.

And the characters? What characters? The book is told start to finish in the POV of a girl who seems completely uninterested in anybody but herself. Oh yes, she falls in love, is jilted, blah blah, but in fact she moven on without any real plot developing, from one situation to the next, abandoning anyone who was ever kind to her without a second thought... she is a stupendously insipid and unpleasant person to spend so much time with.

This was apparently Waters’s first novel and it sort of sets the pace for the five books that followed. It’s 1888 and eighteen-year-old Nancy Astley spends her days help her family run its oyster business in Whitstable, down in Kent. Though it’s only an hour or so away by train, none of them have ever visited London, but Nance frequents the Palace music hall in nearby Canterbury and knows all the tunes and the comic turns from the big city. Then one night she witnesses the performance of Kitty Butler, a “masher” -- that is, a male impersonator, a girl dressed in boy’s clothes who dances and sings slightly bawdy songs. Before the evening is over, Nance is in love, though it takes her awhile to figure that out, the times being what they were.

She worries her parents by going to the Palace every single night for the rest of Kitty’s run, and because her sister is dating a young man who works backstage, she manages an invitation to meet her idol. One thing leads to another and Kitty invites Nance -- whom she calls “Nan” -- to come back to London with her as her dresser. The pay won’t be much but if they share digs they can manage. And that’s the beginning of Nan’s transformation into an entirely different person from the small-town oyster girl.

The next year is blissful as Nan and Kitty build a relationship together -- Waters doesn’t shirk on the physical descriptions, which are both racy and poetically romantic -- and finally their manager, Walter, decides Nan should join the act. A masher duet: That’s never been done before. And Nan looks (and acts) far more boyish in trousers than Kitty does. Soon, they’re being booked into the best halls and they’re making money hand over fist. But Nan’s fundamental attitude toward their sexual relationship is much more straightforward -- more modern, really -- than Kitty’s. The other girl has a deep need to be “normal,” however much she enjoys lesbian sex.

And that’s the end of that -- and the beginning of the next phase in Nancy’s young life. She’ll go through a series of metamorphoses, spending time as a faux rent boy (an interesting double twist), then as the kept woman of a wealthy young widow with an extremely warped collection of friends, then as housekeeper and baby-minder for a politically driven young socialist and her brother. She learns some lessons along the way, though she doesn’t change that much deep down. Not yet.

Water’s style, even in this first outing, is very mature and wonderfully evocative of certain disparate aspects of English society late in the Victorian era. Her descriptive passages are vivid, and also frequently erotic in the best sense of the word. (The title itself is a poetically suggestive euphemism.) The changes through which Nan slowly and painfully progresses are very nicely handled; she’s an entirely plausible character. I somehow missed knowing about this author until I read the glowing reviews of _The Paying Guests,_ her most recent work. I expect to be reading all of them now.

This is a very emotionally powerful book. I had difficulty reading it, but at the same time couldn't stop thinking about it when i tried to read other books. The feelings & experiences that Nancy goes through are intense; even knowing the first big plot twist ahead of time thanks to the synopsis, i still was entirely unprepared for how it happened & how it felt even just reading about it.

It's an enthralling book, written extremely well with lush but not overdone prose, & like i said, even when i felt i needed a break from the intensity of the book, it stayed on my mind so much that i eventually ended up going back to it. It's engrossing, & always leaves you wondering what's going to happen next. It's a story that oftentimes feels like watching someone's life become a train wreck time & again (& sometimes you're reading going, "Don't-- no-- don't do that dON'T DO THAT OH MY GOD DON'T DO THAT"), but you can't look away.

A small but important spoiler is that the book has a happy ending; considering how rare that seems to be for us LGBTQ+ people in media, that feels important for me to mention.

TIPPING THE VELVET

No matter what your sexual orientation, this is a wonderful read. I only say this due to the fact the blurbs regarding TIPPING THE VELVET all mention 'lesbian novel', 'lesbian fiction', 'sexy epic of lesbian London'. At first I was hesitant to read this due to these blurbs because I didn't know if I would enjoy the story. However, since I have been reading -- and loving -- my way through Sarah Waters books, I definitely wanted to read TIPPING THE VELVET.

We meet Nancy Astley, who lives in a small seaside city in England. Her family owns an oyster parlor and she spends her days working hard. One evening Nancy and her sister go into town to the music hall, and, for Nancy, the rest is history. Nancy leaves her family and work and takes off to work in the music hall herself. Her life is off and running. We travel with Nancy all throughout England where she works, meets fascinating people, and changes her life for the better. Or does she change it for the better?

Join Nancy as she journeys through one love affair after another, each one different, each one taking her on a different and unique route. The characters literally jump off the pages, each character is so distinct, every character brings something new, separate, and lasting to Nancy and her life. She falls in and out of love, finds herself in horrible situations, does what she has to do to survive, and is somewhat like a cat; somehow always falling but managing to land on her feet. She is an unique and steady character, as are the others you will encounter.

The novel is set in England in the late 1800's. As I read this book -- mesmerized -- I could not for the life of me imagine 'coming out' during this era in history, let alone in England. The history is rich and thick and full of facts about this time. Author Waters hits the nail on the head regarding the life style of both the rich and poor, the living conditions, politics, mind-set, clothing, food. As you read you actually feel as if you are smack dab in the middle of an icy dirty alley or in a lavish and lush dining hall, filled with the richness of food and opportunity.

There are many sexual encounters and most of them are graphic. This was not disturbing to this reader, but could be to other readers. I would hate to think that this would stop people from reading this wonderful book as the love scenes are not the heart of the book although an important part. I did not find any of the sections regarding 'this riotously sexy epic of lesbian London' offensive, rather just part of the story.

This book is a great one, a love story of sorts, a diary of a young woman's passage into her own heart, her own mind, and her soul. Don't miss this one.

I watched Tipping the Velvet on Netflix about 8 years ago and thought it entertaining and refreshing. Recently was reminded of it, and bought the book. While I enjoyed the first 1/2, I found the last half of the book rather forced and, frankly, a yawn. The author falls back on some terribly dull cliches - the characters and their relationships just did not come alive. Waters describes this book as "a romp". Yes, it's a romp for about the first half but, after that, she was not able to keep the momentum going. For this reader, anyway, the film version was way better than the written one, and that is the only one I would recommend.

I tend to agree with the reviewers who dislike Nancy Astley, the protagonist. She is self-involved and thoughtless. She's also very young and not prone to introspection, so she tends to behave in ways which many of us would find problematic. But her story is one of the awakening of her sensibilities, the beginnings of a genuine concern for others. By the end of the book, I had the feeling that she was going to become a far better person as she grew older. The other thing to recall is that with the possible exception of Nan's parents, nice people are pretty thin on the ground in the first half of the novel. I said to a friend that I was hard pressed to think of a single important character that I found appealing. Nancy, at the mercy of her hormones, had very little in the way of positive role models once she left her home. But little-by-little, she finds her way into better company and we see her begin to become a better person. She has a way to go, but because she has thrown in her lot with better people, I feel she'll get there.

Why did I keep reading? Well it's an interesting story and Waters tells it with grace and a no-nonsense voice. If she wasn't a skilled writer, the characters would likely have killed the story in the first few chapters, but in spite of not liking Nancy very well throughout most of the book, I was anxious to see what would become of her.

In all, "Tipping the Velvet" is both entertaining and educational. I'm not sure how accurate the descriptions of the lesbian milieu are, but that hardly matters as Waters has presented a believable world filled with women on many points in the spectrum of gender identity and sexuality. And Waters politics, even beyond issues of gender, are sound. I think that if you read this with the sense that it is a coming of age novel in several senses, you'll find that it's intriguing and entertaining.

Sarah Water's first novel will become a must-read lesbian classic. Set mostly in the late 1880s through the mid-1890s, the book is a first-person account by Nancy Astley (a.k.a. Nan King) of her progression from an oyster shucker in the Kentish town of Whitstable, England, to the dresser of a music hall performer, Kitty Butler, with whom she's having a secret affair and with whom she herself becomes a musical hall performer in a dual act, to a prostitute impersonating a man, to the sex slave of a wealthy and debauched Sapphist, Diana, to the friend and then lover of a social worker and socialist, Florence Banner. She experiences the overpowering joy of a first love, the pain and despair of betrayal, the near-destruction of her self-esteem, and finally the finding of a maturer, more realistic love. Ms Waters' amazingly detailed depiction of late Nineteenth Century life makes one feel he is actually living in Britain of that era. (The unusual title is Victorian slang for "cunnilingus." The "velvet" refers to the tip of the tongue.)

I loved this book as entertainment, but not necessarily as literature. The tearjerker scenes and the sexual scenes did their job stirring appropriate emotional responses (I think I cried at least five times reading it!)... So, if you want to read a book that is unique and emotionally stirring, I would give this five stars. As far as outright high-quality writing goes, "Tipping the Velvet" was lacking in some areas. The protagonist, Nancy, is a poorly developed character; her voice and personality change so drastically from chapter to chapter that it outpaces realistic character development and sounds like the author just wasn't sure exactly what to do with her. As other people have noted, it is difficult to empathize with her because of her pattern of self-destructive and selfish behaviors, but at least these flaws lend some credibility to her character.

The author's excessive use of the words "queer" and "gay" (in their archaic meaning) became annoying after a few chapters. I think it was an attempt at some form of irony, since modern audiences would read it and immediately reflect on how language changes over time. Yes, I understand that in the Victorian era, people said "gay" and "queer" with very different meanings than they had today... but people didn't use them in every. single. sentence. I honestly don't think I remember seeing a single page of the book where someone didn't describe something or someone as "gay" or "queer," and it became nerve-grating after a while and seemed to reflect poor writing skills.

As the author herself has admitted, the novel is lacking a bit in historical accuracy, but it's worthwhile to suspend disbelief. Certain scenes just didn't make sense within the context of Victorian-era England. For example, a group of butch women walking hand-in-hand with their sweethearts through a rough neighborhood, late at night, wouldn't be safe NOW, and certainly wouldn't have been safe in the 1890s. I doubt that the secret lesbian clubs and cliques of "Tipping the Velvet" (or anything like them), ever existed, but it's nice to think that they could have.

Again, the book serves its purpose as tearjerker material and erotica, and it was an enjoyable read, but it's not an outstanding work of literature.

Normally I speed through books, spending only a few days or 1-3 weeks on ones like this. This? This I only read a chapter or two a night to savor it as much as possible. It is definitely a page turner, but I just didn't want it to end!

Sarah Waters has a way of writing historical fiction that makes you feel like you're really there. I like the fact that there are lots of details about 19th Century England, theatres, clothing and homes along with more humanizing or "normal" things that remind the reader the characters are just like us. (Like describing the room Nan is in am old fashioned way we'll never be able to see, but then have her write her and her girlfriend's initials in a heart on fogged glass.) The emotions ring very true for anyone who has ever been in love and felt basically...anything else. You really feel everything the main character Nan feels, and truly feel like you are walking right beside her in everything she does. As for the eroticism? WOW, and I mean wow. If something could ever "make" someone gay, this would be it! Yet all the sex scenes or sexually charged scenes were written with her subtle old-fashioned charm and discreetness. The beautiful, non-smutty way she wrote it makes it even more appealing. The love story is sweet, exciting and even suspenseful. All of the characters feel like real people who may have existed.

I really can't say enough about this book. The story is fantastic, it has memorable characters, a beautiful writing style, and puts great emotion and eroticism into everything. Go read a copy now.

So unlike the majority, I actually watched the TV show of TTV before I read the book and I had already fallen in love with that on its own, but 2 years I thought I would pick up the book and I am so glad I did. The show is - for the most part - a relatively faithful adaptation but you won't get half of the beauty, the accuracy of the time era, and the intensity that you get in the book. I loved going further in Ms Walters mind and understanding Nan so much more, I loved how the book is set in 3 parts and the attention to detail is outstanding. What makes this book one of my favourites is it's attention to detail in relation to the late Victorian era and it seems Miss Walters has left no stone unturned in her research for it. Nan's growth and development throughout the book is exciting and moving, you genuinely go on the journey with her which eventually climaxes into a very satisfying ending. I cannot criticise this book in any shape of form. Amazing.

This début shows the research and the diligence of its author, with a doctorate in English. As with "Fingersmith" (see my recent review), 19c London comes alive. The narrator convinces you by a literary, yet everyday tone that, as in both novels, for me remains Waters' narrative strength.

One passage stands out as a neat symbol for the passions beneath the surface that try to break free, this being the 1890s, of the time and its well-known restrictions. "I looked at the river again-- at that extraordinary ordinary transformation, that easy submission to the urgings of natural law, that was yet so rare and so unsettling." (101) The narrator and her female lover gaze at the marvel of the Thames frozen over.

And, if in less a confined, incarcerated sense than the criminal-Gothic-madhouse haunted "Fingersmith," Victorian conventions contend convincingly with rebellion among its women. Waters captures the tone of how a smart, yet uneducated, woman might come of age among, in turn, the theatre, as a kept woman of the bohemian "toms" of a lesbian demi-monde, and then as a Socialist suffragette street-corner speaker. The three parts of the novel correspond to the storyteller's rise, fall, and rising again.

The book jacket blurb contained a major spoiler, so beware. I will veer away from plot points. Waters tends, for me in both novels I've read, to be more confident in period details, emotional resonances, and observed conventions. Her story structure here as it follows the arc of the novels written 110 years ago tends not to surprise, perhaps, as much as entertain. I found myself less intrigued by the actual plot, and pages seemed to wear on with dialogue that seemed accurate enough but too wordy and too labored in the telling of an efficiently moving, fast-paced, story. I may be jaded, but I wanted it to hurry up and not dawdle so much.

Trumpeted as an erotic lesbian romp, the sex in it, while more explicit and abundant than in the study of repression that motivates "Fingersmith," is still rather sparse. It may be less than some readers anticipate. What Waters does well, and will do even better in her next novel, is to balance the sensuous with the spare, the presence of the beloved being usually less common than her denial or absence. This creates tension that Waters, at her best, puts to good use to energize her tales.

Given the reviews and a recommendation I looked forward to reading this novel. I hated it. Slow story that was too wordy. I found myself skipping entire paragraphs and not missing any important details. The main character, Nan, had zero redeeming qualities. She was a mean, selfish, narcissist. Actually, most of the characters were horrible people. I was told it was a love story but it reads more like an erotic novel. I am far from being a prude but some of the sexual descriptions were uncomfortable to read and at times abusive.

One can only imagine living in Victorian London with its fa?ade of fastidiousness and propriety lying on top of realities of grime, poverty, and decadence, let alone coping with the taboos of homosexuality. The author gives us a glimpse into this world through the voice of Nancy Astley, a simple and na?ve oyster-girl of eighteen living in a seaside village with a completely predictable life, who has her life completely transformed by her unexpected and total fixation on the songstress and male-dresser Kitty Butler performing at the local music hall. Nancy experiences a great deal of anxiety over her sudden passion for a female, yet also exhilaration, as she becomes Kitty's dresser, sweetheart, and then lover, finally moving to London with Kitty and her agent, Walter.

The stresses associated with sexual labeling soon result in Kitty casting Nancy, now called Nan King as part of the stage act, aside over fears of being labeled a "tom," or lesbian. Nancy, no more than a na?ve and infatuated show girl, is devastated with this turn of events and basically hibernates for months. The book follows Nancy as she carves out a meager existence as a male impersonator for "rent" in the back alleys of London; temporarily moves to the top of the economic order by becoming, in essence, the sexual slave of an aristocratic, sybaritic older woman; and then forms an unlikely attachment with a female labor organizer.

The book best captures the reader when the passion and resilience of Nancy comes into clear view, especially in her awakening after first encountering Kitty. However, the multiple changes in living locations and conditions and the finding of new partners start to become wearisome. One suspects that Nancy was unrealistically lucky. In her dire circumstances she never experiences hunger, sickness, venereal disease, or street violence - all of which were highly likely in those times.

No doubt that eroticism - mild as it is - and lesbian relationships are central to this book, but the growth, education, self-understanding, and the sorting out of options for Nancy are the bigger story.

This book was stunning, absolutely stunning. It stirs your heart and you are wanting to know what happens next to the characters. Sarah Waters has created a fascinating world and a world that I loved inhabiting as I read this book.

Nancy Astley works in her family's oyster restaurant and goes to the weekends to the music halls. There, she meets Kitty Butler and they become fast friends. Kitty invites Nancy to be her dresser in London and it gets really fast past then. It goes from her being with Kitty, to having her heart broken by Kitty, then being a renter and living with the cruel Diana. To lastly, meeting a young socialist by the name of Florence. The characters, all of them, are intriguing. Nancy is a pillar of strength and Diana, though cruel, is definately interesting. Florence is the perfect girl for Nancy and Kitty. I have nothing but loathing for that character, because of what she did to Nancy.

The prose, reminded me of a cross between a modern novelist, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. It was highly engaging and it makes one feel as if they are with Nancy and seeing what she sees. As far as the Erotic goes, it is, definately. But I think what really makes it good is the relationships and seeing things through Nancy's eyes.

This is a must read for anyone, gay, straight or bi.

This book was fascinating. I read the other reviews prior to buying the book. It wasn't what I was expecting, it was so much more.
I am a big "Oliver" fan, so life in Victorian Era England holds a special interest to me. To read about the lesbian lifestyle of that era was amazing. The author brought the era and the lifestyle to life for me.
I was surprised when I found myself feeling rather unsympathetic towards the main character (Nancy) mid-way through the book. I don't remember ever finishing a book in which I felt unsympathetic towards the main character. While I felt unsympathetic towards Nancy, I still cared for her. I found that very surprising. Yes, I cared very much for Nancy.
This was a wonderful novel. I had to finish it in only two sittings. Then promptly went on-line to purchase Sarah Walters two other books.
I was surprised by some reviews that felt disappointed with the book. However, based on their reviews, I believe they were looking for something that was not there. I didn't find the hot explicit sex scenes that were indicated. That's not to say there wasn't sex, but it was primarily a book about a character and her personal growth. It is not a hot/steamy novel. Just a very good, complex and complete novel.

This book is set in Victorian England and deals with the shadow world of love between women. Nancy Astley leaves home at the age of 18 to work as a dresser for Kitty Butler, a young music hall performer who dresses like a man for her act. Nancy's in love with her and soon they're secret lovers. Later, Nancy learns to dress as a man and pick up other men for money and is also cast into the world of a wealthy lesbian woman who uses Nancy as she would a boy toy. Eventually, Nancy finds true love, but only after the reader is taken with her on her many adventures through this shadow world.
The book is 472 pages, but I couldn't put it down. I related to Nancy and her trials and tribulations and fascinated by the world the author created. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it existed. But this book brought me right into its center, viewing the London's music halls and filthy streets as well as the opulent private clubs through Nancy's eyes. I felt her pain and admired her feistiness as she rose above one obstacle after another. I also liked the fact that the romantic scenes were explicit and compelling. Most of all though, I loved the story and the way the author told it. Highly recommended.