There are some authors you know are going to give you a good time. Sarah Waters is one of them. Her prose is so effortless, her narrative so captivating. She is often referred to as a storyteller, a term that suits her better than the slightly dry ‘author’. You can imagine this novel being read aloud, around a fire while it’s dark outside, the audience hanging off every word.

The Paying Guests is terrific. Its period setting is so well realised, summoning up a mix of melancholy romance, unease, and stiffling frustration. A time I would like to visit but am throughly relieved not to live in. Frances, the heroine, slowly reveals herself to be more than the unmarried daughter, condemned to a lifetime of pitying looks for not snaring a husband. Her pre-war zeal for change has been buried by tragedy and despondency, but her feelings are reawakened by the arrival of Leonard and Lilian Barber in her mother’s large south London house.

The relationships are beautifully crafted: between mother and daughter; husband and wife; friends and neighbours. Violence, sexual tension and doubt lurk everywhere. The action takes a dramatic turn but is always convincing. The way events tumble out of Frances’s control leave her uncertain over who to trust, and doubtful of the validity of her own feelings. She is caught in a paralysis of indecision, where even the decisions she does make don’t truly feel like her own.

Ultimately, there is a sense of passivity, which left me feeling a little bleak. Frances and Lillian seem to be in limbo, unsure of what to do and waiting for life to push them in a particular direction. This does, of course, match the national mood of the period – recovering from a devastating war with little sense of optimism or how to move forward – and reflects Waters’ great skill. Her characters are living, breathing and individual, yet very much shaped by their time.