''A page-turning melodrama and a fascinating portrait of London on the verge of great change'' Guardian

It 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