Sarah Waters Popular Books

Sarah Waters Biography & Facts

Sarah Ann Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. Life and education Early life Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales, in 1966. She later moved to Middlesbrough, England, when she was eight years old. She grew up in a family that included her father Ron, mother Mary, and a "much older" sister. Her mother was a housewife and her father an engineer who worked on oil refineries. She describes her family as "pretty idyllic, very safe and nurturing". Her father, "a fantastically creative person", encouraged her to build and invent.Waters said, "When I picture myself as a child, I see myself constructing something, out of plasticine or papier-mâché or Meccano; I used to enjoy writing poems and stories, too." She wrote stories and poems that she describes as "dreadful gothic pastiches", but had not planned her career. Despite her obvious enjoyment of writing, she did not feel any special calling or preference for becoming a novelist in her youth. I don’t know if I thought about it much, really. I know that, for a long time, I wanted to be an archaeologist – like lots of kids. And I think I knew I was headed for university, even though no one else in my family had been. I really enjoyed learning. I remember my mother telling me that I might one day go to university and write a thesis, and explaining what a thesis was; and it seemed a very exciting prospect. I was clearly a bit of a nerd. Waters was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, joining as a result of her boyfriend at the time. Politically, she has always identified as a leftist. Education After Milford Haven Grammar School, Waters attended university and earned degrees in English literature. She received a BA from the University of Kent, an MA from Lancaster University, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. Her PhD thesis, entitled Wolfskins and togas: lesbian and gay historical fictions, 1870 to the present, served as inspiration and material for future books. As part of her research she read 19th-century pornography, in which she came across the title of her first book, Tipping the Velvet. However, her literary influences are also found in the popular classics of Victorian literature, such as Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Shelley and the Brontës, and in the contemporary novelists that combine a keen interest in Victoriana with a post-modernist approach to fiction, especially A.S. Byatt and John Fowles. Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus had a huge influence on her début novel as well; Waters praises Carter for her literary prose, her "common touch", and her commitment to feminism. Personal life Waters came out as lesbian in the late 1980s. She has been in a relationship with copy editor Lucy Vaughan since 2002. As of 2007, she lived in Kennington, south-east London. Career Before writing novels, Waters worked as an academic, earning a doctorate and teaching. Waters went directly from her doctoral thesis to her first novel. It was during the process of writing her thesis that she thought she would write a novel; she began as soon as the thesis was complete. Her work is very research-intensive, which is an aspect she enjoys. Waters was briefly a member of the long-running London North Writers circle, whose members have included the novelists Charles Palliser and Neil Blackmore, among others.With the exception of The Little Stranger, all of her books contain lesbian themes, and she does not mind being labelled a lesbian writer. She said, "I'm writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It's right there at the heart of the books." Despite this "common agenda in teasing out lesbian stories from parts of history that are regarded as quite heterosexual", she also calls her lesbian protagonists "incidental", due to her own sexual orientation. "That's how it is in my life, and that's how it is, really, for most lesbian and gay people, isn't it? It's sort of just there in your life." Tipping the Velvet (1998) Her debut work was the Victorian picaresque Tipping the Velvet, published by Virago Press in 1998. The novel took 18 months to write. The book takes its title from Victorian slang for cunnilingus. Waters describes the novel as a "very upbeat [...] kind of a romp".It won a 1999 Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.In 2002, the novel was adapted into a three-part television serial of the same name for BBC Two. It has been translated into at least 24 languages, including Chinese, Latvian, Hungarian, Korean and Slovenian. Affinity (1999) Waters's second book, Affinity, was published a year after her first, in 1999. The novel, also set in the Victorian era, centres on the world of Victorian Spiritualism. While finishing her debut novel, Waters had been working on an academic paper on spiritualism. She combined her interests in spiritualism, prisons, and the Victorian era in Affinity, which tells the story of the relationship between an upper-middle-class woman and an imprisoned spiritualist. The novel is less light-hearted than the ones that preceded and followed it. Waters found it less enjoyable to write. "It was a very gloomy world to have to go into every day", she said.Affinity won the Stonewall Book Award and Somerset Maugham Award. Andrew Davies wrote a screenplay adapting Affinity and the resulting feature film premiered 19 June 2008 at the opening night of Frameline the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival at the Castro Theater. Fingersmith (2002) Fingersmith was published in 2002. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. Fingersmith was made into a serial for BBC One in 2005, starring Sally Hawkins, Elaine Cassidy and Imelda Staunton. Waters approved of the adaptation, calling it "a really good quality show", and said it was "very faithful to the book. It was spookily faithful to the book at times, which was exciting." The novel was later adapted again by South Korean director Park Chan-wook into the 2016 film The Handmaiden, which set the story in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s. Fingersmith was named by singer and artist David Bowie as one of his "top 100 books". The Night Watch (2006) The Night Watch took four years for Waters to write. It differs from the first three novels in its time period and its structure. Although her thesis and previous books focused on the 19th century, Waters said that "Something about the 1940s called to me". It was also less tightly plotted than her other books. Waters said, I had more or less to figure the book out as I went along – a very time-consuming and unnerving experience for me, as I tried out scenes and chapters in lots of different ways. I ended up with a pile of rejected scenes about three feet high. It was satisfying in the end, realising just what should go where; but a lot of the .... Discover the Sarah Waters popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sarah Waters books.

Best Seller Sarah Waters Books of 2024

  • The Flying Circus synopsis, comments

    The Flying Circus

    Susan Crandall

    The awardwinning, national bestselling author of Whistling Past the Graveyard sends an unlikely trio on an exhilarating adventure high above the American Midwest of the 1920s in a ...

  • A Wreath Of Roses synopsis, comments

    A Wreath Of Roses

    Elizabeth Taylor & Helen Dunmore

    INTRODUCED BY HELEN DUNMOREElizabeth Taylor's darkest novel . . . She writes with a sensuous richness of language that draws the reader down the most shadowy paths . . . Extremely ...

  • Monster, She Wrote synopsis, comments

    Monster, She Wrote

    Lisa Kroger & Melanie R. Anderson

    Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond.Frankenstein was just th...

  • Cherringham - Blade in the Water synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Blade in the Water

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    It's just days before the Cherringham Regatta an annual event that draws luxury yachts from across the country, as well as the local boat crowd, all looking to party on the river....

  • The Night Ship synopsis, comments

    The Night Ship

    Jess Kidd

    Based on a true story, an epic historical novel from the awardwinning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Wes...

  • Cherringham - The Vanishing Tourist synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - The Vanishing Tourist

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    When an American tourist goes missing in Cherringham, the local police don't see reason for concern people often wander away from such tours. But when that tourist's sister shows ...

  • Test Your Bible Knowledge synopsis, comments

    Test Your Bible Knowledge

    Wilson Casey

    People are passionate when it comes to the Lord?s word, as the Holy Bible has remained in the topmost rank of bestselling books of all time. Test Your Bible Knowledge is a fun, inf...

  • Cherringham - Episode 4 - 6 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 4 - 6

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Bitter Orange synopsis, comments

    Bitter Orange

    Claire Fuller

    An NPR Best Book of the Year"Unsettling and eerie, Bitter Orange is an ideal chiller." Time Magazine From the author of Our Endless Numbered Days and Swimming L...

  • The Satyricon synopsis, comments

    The Satyricon

    Petronius

    The Satyricon is one of the most outrageous and strikingly modern works to have survived from the ancient world. Most likely written by an advisor of Nero, it recounts the adventur...

  • Cherringham - Episode 10 - 12 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 10 - 12

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Cherringham - Episode 16-18 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 16-18

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • House on Endless Waters synopsis, comments

    House on Endless Waters

    Emuna Elon

    “Elon powerfully evokes the obscurity of the past and its hold on the present as we stumble through revelation after revelation with Yoel. As we accompany him on his journey…we sha...

  • Everything You Ever Wanted synopsis, comments

    Everything You Ever Wanted

    Luiza Sauma

    Read along with Florence Welch this February and March as part of the Between Two Books book club'Wry, beautiful, surprising and deeply moving' Rachel Seiffert, Guardian'Captures s...

  • Ill Will synopsis, comments

    Ill Will

    Michael Stewart

    ‘An astonishing novel’ The IndependentI am William Lee: brute; liar, and graveside thief.But you will know me by another name.Heathcliff has left Wuthering Heights, and is travelli...

  • The Trick synopsis, comments

    The Trick

    Emanuel Bergmann

    Sweeping between Prague during World War II and modernday Los Angeles, “The Trick is a lyrical, uplifting, and funny story that will tug at all of your heartstrings” (Armando Lucas...

  • The Missing One synopsis, comments

    The Missing One

    Lucy Atkins

    'A gripping pageturner' Sunday Times 'Beautifully written and compelling' Sabine Durrant 'Satisfyingly creepy' Sunday MirrorThe loss of her mother has left Kali McKenzie with too...

  • Instinct synopsis, comments

    Instinct

    Ben Kay

    Hidden in a remote corner of the South American jungle is a clandestine research facility known simply as MEROS. Here, working in laboratories buried a thousand feet underground, m...

  • Cheatgrass synopsis, comments

    Cheatgrass

    Bart Paul

    The followup to Under Tower Peak is another taut, fastmoving thriller that builds to an explosive, actionfilled conclusion.Under Tower Peak was acclaimed by the Wall Street Journal...

  • Cherringham - Episode 19-21 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 19-21

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • The Descent synopsis, comments

    The Descent

    Alma Katsu

    The author of The Hunger delivers a “daring, soaring, and ultimately gutwrenching” (The New York Times) conclusion to her critically acclaimed Taker Trilogy, bringing Lanore McIlvr...

  • The Tenderness of Wolves synopsis, comments

    The Tenderness of Wolves

    Stef Penney

    10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION FEATURES READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND NEW MATERIAL FROM STEF'S UPCOMING EPIC NOVEL, UNDER A POLE STARCOSTA AWARD WINNER and WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER. A brea...

  • Theft of Life synopsis, comments

    Theft of Life

    Imogen Robertson

    London, 1785. When the body of a former West Indies planter is found outside St Paul's Cathedral, suspicion abounds. But talk is not only of the man's death. His past brings a tide...

  • The Pirate King synopsis, comments

    The Pirate King

    Graham A. Thomas

    A compelling account of history's most famous pirate.The Pirate King is the compelling true story of a Welshman who became one of the most ruthless and brutal buccaneers of the gol...

  • Cherringham - Final Cut synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Final Cut

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    When a big movie production comes to Cherringham, complete with lords, ladies, and flashing swords, the whole village is abuzz with excitement. But when a series of dangerous accid...

  • Whistling Past the Graveyard synopsis, comments

    Whistling Past the Graveyard

    Susan Crandall

    From an awardwinning author comes a wise and tender comingofage story about a nineyearold girl who runs away from her Mississippi home in 1963, befriends a lonely woman suffering l...

  • Cherringham - Episode 1 - 3 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 1 - 3

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Cherringham - Episode 25-27 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 25-27

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Cherringham - Episode 7 - 9 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 7 - 9

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • The Taker synopsis, comments

    The Taker

    Alma Katsu

    From the author of The Hungerhailed by Stephen King as “deeply, deeply disturbing, hard to put down”comes a hauntingly atmospheric tale filled with alchemy, lust, and betrayal.True...

  • The Soul Of Kindness synopsis, comments

    The Soul Of Kindness

    Elizabeth Taylor & Philip Hensher

    INTRODUCED BY PHILIP HENSHER'Elizabeth Taylor is finally being recognised as an important British author: an author of great subtlety, great compassion and great depth. As a reader...

  • How I Lose You synopsis, comments

    How I Lose You

    Kate McNaughton

    'Wonderful' Stylist'Thoroughly addictive. I loved it.' RUTH HOGAN, author of The Keeper of Lost Things'Superb' Louise O'NeillWhen Eva and Adam fall into bed one Friday night, ti...

  • Cherringham - Follow the Money synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Follow the Money

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Claire and Terry Goodman seem to have everything. Successful business. Son at Oxford. New mansion right on the River Thames. And seemingly ... plenty of money to spend. But when Ja...

  • Mayhem synopsis, comments

    Mayhem

    Sarah Pinborough

    From the Number One bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes. Delve into a gaslit London, where Jack the Ripper is making headlines, but another, much more dangerous, madman is on the...

  • Still Waters in a Storm synopsis, comments

    Still Waters in a Storm

    Stephen Haff

    “In my years of experience as a writer and as a college professor, I have never seen anything like this: the love for language, the passion for discussion, clarity of mind, and hum...

  • Cherringham - Episode 28-30 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 28-30

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Sarah Waters synopsis, comments

    Sarah Waters

    Kaye Mitchell

    A multiple awardwinning author, Sarah Waters is one of the most critically and commercially successful novelists writing today. In such novels as Fingersmith, Tipping the Velvet, A...

  • Cherringham - Ghost of a Chance synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Ghost of a Chance

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Every Halloween, the supposedly haunted Bell Hotel hosts its famous 'GhostHunters Dinner', complete with scary stories, spooky apparitions and things that go bump in the night. But...

  • The Misbegotten synopsis, comments

    The Misbegotten

    Katherine Webb

    A powerful and absorbing mystery from the Sunday Times Top Ten bestselling author of THE LEGACY.Bath, 1821. When Rachel Crofton marries, her new life soon takes a more unexpected t...

  • The Reckoning synopsis, comments

    The Reckoning

    Alma Katsu

    In this “rich, satisfying, and gorgeously written sequel” (Chapters) to her acclaimed debut novel, The Taker, Alma Katsu pairs a mysteriously alluring young woman with an ER doctor...

  • Cherringham - Episode 22-24 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 22-24

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • The Drowning Kind synopsis, comments

    The Drowning Kind

    Jennifer McMahon

    A NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLER OF 2021In this “blisteringly suspenseful tale that will keep you up at night” (Wendy Webb, author of Daughters of the Lake), a woman returns to the o...

  • Cherringham - The Last Puzzle synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - The Last Puzzle

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    When amiable old village eccentric Quentin Andrews dies, the good folk of Cherringham are astonished at the crowd that turns up to his funeral. But even more astonished are the ben...

  • The Whispering House synopsis, comments

    The Whispering House

    Elizabeth Brooks

    "Eerie and addictive. . . . Like Wuthering Heights, The Whispering House is a melancholy novel, its characters filled with dark longings." The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the a...

  • Cherringham - Episode 13-15 synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - Episode 13-15

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    Jack's a retired excop from New York, seeking the simple life in Cherringham. Sarah's a Web designer who's moved back to the village find herself. But their lives are anything but ...

  • Cherringham - A Death in the Family synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - A Death in the Family

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    When a doddering Harry Platt tumbles from the top of his stairs in a deadly fall, it looks like an unfortunate accident. But solicitor Tony Standish’s suspicions are aroused when h...

  • The Children on the Hill synopsis, comments

    The Children on the Hill

    Jennifer McMahon

    From the New York Times bestselling author of The Drowning Kind comes a genredefying novel, inspired by Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein, that brilliantly explores the eerie...

  • The Broken Hours synopsis, comments

    The Broken Hours

    Jacqueline Baker

    In the cold spring of 1936, Arthor Crandle, downonhis luck and desperate for work, accepts a position in Providence, Rhode Island, as a livein secretary/assistant for an unnamed sh...

  • Cherringham - The Secret of Combe Castle synopsis, comments

    Cherringham - The Secret of Combe Castle

    Matthew Costello & Neil Richards

    When the penniless FitzHenrys, proprietors of the rundown Combe Castle Heritage Site, find themselves victims of a threatening campaign to oust them from their ancestral home, Jack...