Publisher details

Author: Sarah Waters
Publisher: Hachette
Genre: Historical Fiction
Released: 01 January, 1999

Affinity

Buy now

Retail partners

Synopsis

"Now you know why you are drawn to me – why your flesh comes creeping to mine, and what it comes for. Let it creep."From the dark heart of a Victorian prison, disgraced spiritualist Selina Dawes weaves an enigmatic spell. Is she a fraud, or a prodigy? By the time it all begins to matter, you'll find yourself desperately wanting to believe in magic.Set in and around the women’'s prison at Milbank in the 1870s, Affinity is 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.Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prisons more unlikely inmates – the imprisoned spiritualist – Selina Dawes. Sympathetic to the plight of this innocent-seeming girl, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions. "Sexy, spooky, stylish, Affinity is a wonderful book from any perspective" Guardian"Indeed, this is such a brilliant writer that her readers would believe anything she told them" Daily Mail"A work of intense and atmospheric imagination … Sarah Waters is a kind of feminist Dickens" Telegraph

About the author

Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University.She has written six novels: Tipping the Velvet (1998), which won the Betty Trask Award; Affinity (1999), which won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; Fingersmith (2002), which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, and won the South Bank Show Award for Literature and the CWA Historical Dagger; The Night Watch (2006), which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize; The Little Stranger (2009), which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the South Bank Show Literature Award. The Paying Guests is her latest novel, released in 2014.She was included in Granta's prestigious list of 'Best of Young British Novelists 2003', and in the same year was voted Author of the Year by both publishers and booksellers at the British Book Awards and the BA Conference, and won the Waterstone's Author of the Year Award.Adaptations include Tipping the Velvet (multi award winning, BAFTA nominated) by Sally Head Productions for BBC; Fingersmith (BAFTA nominated) by Sally Head Productions for BBC; Affinity (several awards worldwide) by Box TV for ITV; The Night Watch for BBC. The Little Stranger is in development as a feature film with Potboiler Productions, adapted by Lucinda Coxon and to be directed by Lennie Abrahamson.Stage adaptations of Tipping The Velvet (written by Laura Wade, to be directed by Lindsay Turner for Lyric Theatre/Edinburgh Lyceum) and Fingersmith (written by Alexa Junge, to be directed by Bill Rauch for The Oregon Shakespeare Festival) are to be presented in 2015.