The Paying Guests
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Description
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband and even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
Reviewed on 21st August 2015
I'm not sure whether I bought this book because of the aggressive marketing campaign or because I misread the blurb. I picked it up under the impression that this was a crime novel with a bit of historical setting and romance - it turned out to be the other way round.
I really enjoyed reading the first third of the book, where the historical aspects are at the fore, and we the readers learn about the characters whose lives we are spying upon, and what their daily lives incur in the between-wars years.
After that though the plot shifted up a gear and toward the end really took over in a way that I found made things quite dull, with just scene after scene of uninspiring action. I almost felt that I would have preferred a book in which the first part continued into just a look at typical life rather than anything 'interesting' happen to the characters.
I'm not saying it was bad - it was an interesting story and it left me thinking about a number of things, particularly pondering some of the motivations of the characters outside the one with whom we are aligned. I'm probably just strange for being more inspired by the setting than the plot.