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World Hotels - Affinity
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $10.20
Your Save: $ 4.80 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781573228732
ISBN: 1573228737
Label: Riverhead Trade
Manufacturer: Riverhead Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: 2002-01-08
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Studio: Riverhead Trade
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Editorial Reviews:
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An upper-class woman, recovering from a suicide attempt, visits the women's ward of Millbank prison as part of her rehabilitation. There she meets Selina, an enigmatic spiritualist-and becomes 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 Selina's freedom, and her own.
"Unfolds sinuously and ominously...a powerful plot-twister. The book is multidimensional: a naturalistic look at Victorian society; a truly suspenseful tale of terror; and a piece of elegant, thinly veiled erotica." (USA Today)
"Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrative-Sarah Waters' second novel is all of these wrapped into one, served up to superbly suspenseful and hypnotic effect." (The Seattle Times)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great pace and story
Comment: Pace and a good story, that's all I want and this book delivers. Miss Margaret Prior, recovering from some personal shock, is advised to spend some time visiting a women's prison in London. There she meets a number of colourful characters appropriately reeking of Dickens and Bronte. She becomes obsessed and taken in by a particularly stunning and suffering young lady who possesses spiritual powers. It is because of these gifts that this alluringly pale Miss Dawes is now serving time, having conducted a seance that went awry, to put it simply. Miss Prior visits regularly, speculates and finally plots an escape for Miss Dawes. Here the plot cannot be revealed but I don't mention pace and story for nothing. Wonderful stuff! You expect The Woman in White or the theatrical The Woman in Black, anything to satisfy the desire and expectation of the macabre and other-worldly, but this is a more bitter and realistic story.
Juicy depiction of 19th century London, of contrasts between life on Cheyne Walk and life in the prison near London Bridge, of life at home as a spinster daughter to a difficult mother, of a love that cannot even be defined let alone nurtured.
I didn't think I would be taken in by the occult subject of this book, but the historical details and characters are so vivid that I was completely charmed. Sarah Waters is a top writer. I've read them all and can't wait for more of her books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 3.5 But I'm Rounding Up, A Dark and Sadly Moving Tale
Comment: I recently read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and I loved it. I thought Sarah Waters did a wonderful job of creating realistic characters and a fabulously complicated story that was taut with suspense from beginning to end.
Affinity was also very well written and I felt strongly about the characters she created, the story was good and there were surprises, though it was not as taut as Fingersmith.
I was moved by this story and can say that it was well done, my only disappointment is in what happens...which is almost unfair to judge a book by.
I did enjoy reading about the Spiritualist Movement, it reminded me of Megan Chance's recent novel, The Spiritualist.
Sarah Waters is a talented writer and I will be reading more from her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredibly atmospheric but was just missing something to make it great
Comment: When I finally learned how to read at the late ago of seven I stopped seeing words as a series of letters and started seeing pictures instead. Not just the picture one word projected or one sentence, but the whole book. I started reading books as though they were movies and so learned to read faster because I was so immersed in the atmosphere of the book.
Atmosphere has always been the most important part of the book to me. If I can't really believe my surroundings while I'm reading then the book just isn't worth finishing.
From the very first page of this book I heard creepy piano music, saw dim lights that were almost depressing and a lot of the color gray. This may not seem like an atmosphere you'd want to spend 350+ pages in, but it fit the story so well that I was just lost in the book. The author's power of description was perfect and made reading this book a true experience.
"Affinity" is told in two parts, a narrative in diary form set about a year in the past from the main story from the point of view of Salina Dawes, a young spiritualist in 1870's London arrested for assault and fraud and a diary by Michelle Prior a wealthy spinster who has become a lady visitor at a prison to take her mind off some mystery shrouded event in her life.. The two alternate-Salina with extremely vague and short entries that leave you wondering if she has spiritual powers or is just a clever fraud and Michelle detailing everything that happens in her unhappy home life and her obsessive visits to Milbank prison. The two together bring forth at atmosphere of grayness, misunderstanding and silence, weather imposed by prison guards or polite society. Truly they do so seem to have an affinity to them.
But as the book progresses and we learn more of Salina and Michelle strange things start to happen. Items disappear from Michelle's bedroom and Salina says that the sprits took them-and on top of that she knows things Michelle could have never told her. A sort of link develops between the two leading to their final plan and the revelation that changes everything.
I liked this book a lot and was very surprised by the turns and twists its story took. That atmosphere as I've said was excellent and really did its job of transporting the reader into the story. But for some reason the story didn't call out to me so while I did like this book I didn't love it.
Four stars
Customer Rating:
Summary: Was this really written in the twentieth century???
Comment: Having enjoyed Waters' TIPPING THE VELVET, I brought AFFINITY along on vacation (mostly, I'll admit, because it was one of the few paperbacks I had handy and wanted to travel light!). What a wonderful read! Set in the late 19th Century, this book captured me from the start with page-turning prose not often found in current writers. Waters' prose reads like Daphne Du Maurier's - musically poetic yet abundantly understandable. This is the (fictional) story of Margaret Prior - a woman of means in 19th C. England who, because she's at odds with Victorian society, becomes involved with an emprisoned psychic spiritualist. I won't spoil the plot, but suffice it to say there are many twists and turns!
This book evolved in a way that left me feeling I was hands of an adept writer. I was, quite simply, engrossed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I feel conflicted about this book
Comment: I read this book after reading Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, and perhaps that is why I was disappointed with Affinity. Fingersmith being genius and TTV being extremely entertaining, Affinity was a letdown for me.
The book was slow and the build-up was tedious...
Although I was wowed with the conclusion, I felt more frustrated with it than satisfied.
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