Affinity

Rating:
Summary: dark and surprising
Review: Affinity is more polished than Waters' previous award-winner "Tipping the Velvet". While Tipping the Velvet was an epic of love and position lost and gained over a lifetime, Affinity focuses on a short period of time and two main characters. The scope of this novel is as tight as a short story, with no trailing pieces left unresolved. There is definitely a Gothic touch, with the dark brooding prison, the yellowish London fogs, and the black mourning clothes that the heroine must wear. This book could be described as a mix of the mysteries of Sherlock Holmes with a Dickensian critique of Victorian society.

The story is about a Lady Visitor, Margaret, who begins visiting the women of Millbank prison because charity work should help get her mind off her dear father's death. There she meets Selina Dawes, a spiritualist who is jailed for an assault that occurred during one of her seances. There are many mystical things that happen in this book, and the reader is left to puzzle out whether to believe in the spirits or look for a logical explanation. Margaret herself is a skeptic, not sure whether to believe in Selina's tales of spirit friends.

The ending comes as quite a surprise, and like the Sixth Sense or Fight Club, will have you paging backwards to look for the clues you missed.

Rating:
Summary: Pulls you in and doesn't let you go, even after the end
Review: A much different setting than "Tipping the Velvet," Affinity has still managed to capture a dark side of Victorian London. It brushes on the mysteries of "spiritualism" and indulges in a forbidden love of two women. It is suspenseful, keeping you on the edge of your seat until the very end and then some.
It is the story of a proper lady, Margaret Prior and the love affair she shares with prision inmate, Selina Dawes. The books twists and turns, taking you on an unexpected ride where the characters battle between propriety, love, spiritualism and dark secrets.

Rating:
Summary: Much better than Tipping the Velvet & Fingersmith
Review: I have now read all three of Waters novels, and I would say this is the best. It was hard to get into it and I almost didn't bother to continue, but I slogged through and by the second half I looked forward to nightly reading. The ending was a great surprise, and I was left with my heart pounding and unable to sleep. The style of narrative is annoying in the beginning, but the rhythm soon makes itself clear. Worth the effort for a Victorian style novel. A similar theme of betrayal runs throughout the three books, but with enough variation to make it worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Tricky Gothic Novel that Leaves a Mark
Review: A story with gothic atmosphere, AFFINITY is set in 1875 London. The narrator, Miss Margaret Prior, is an upper class woman on the verge of turning 30, and when we become acquainted with her, she is making her first visit to Millbank Prison. She is to be the Lady Visitor-someone who comes to visit and motivate the pathetic denizens locked up for everything from petty crimes and prostitution to murder. Very quickly she becomes compulsively interested in a young woman, Selina Dawes, a spiritualist and medium in jail for harming a young girl and for involvement in the death of her benefactress.

Miss Prior's elaborate descriptions of Millbank, the incarcerated women, and her daily life at home soon reveal that she, too, is locked in her own private prison from which she has no way to escape. She's already had one "nervous" episode nearly resulting in her death. This followed the betrayal of a woman with whom she was smitten and the death of her dearly beloved father. She is a woman locked in a world with social mores that do not allow her to be herself-nor even to know who her real Self is. Only Selina has managed to introduce a little magic into her life.

With each passing week, the story builds in intensity as Miss Prior visits the dismal Millbank and attempts to see Selina Dawes as often as possible. Though she fights it, little by little, she surrenders to her feelings for the other woman. Will Selina manage to escape and will Miss Prior assist? Is the young woman truly innocent and wrongly convicted? We get clues from periodic diary entries made by Selina, but the mystery of the spiritualist's past is not revealed until the end.

AFFINITY has a feel much like the gothic novels of old, and the style and tone made me wonder if Waters could possibly be the spiritual daughter of Emily Brontë and Mary Shelley. The story's impact quietly creeps up on the reader until the surprising denouement, which, though it seems to come out of the blue, I realized I should have seen coming. I found myself thinking of this novel and Miss Prior's horrendous predicament for weeks. AFFINITY leaves a mark.
~Lori L. Lake, Reviewer for Midwest Book Review, [ ], and The Independent Gay Writer.

Rating:
Summary: Eh
Review: I suppose the problem is that "Fingersmith" was such an incredible book, I was expecting the same from "Affinity." It just isn't as good a book, and could have used some massive editing. The story was fascinating, but the ending seemed tacked on and artificial.

Rating:
Summary: Good story spooky ending
Review: Read Tipping The Velvet, loved it so I picked up the next book and what do I find. Geeze. Can you say spooky. The ending gave me interesting dreams for about a week. But heck. The book was good so I forgive it. Just don't read the book in a haunted house or alone in the woods.

Just warning ya.

Basic plot. (from memory lost book) Young woman fast on her way to becoming a loony spinster takes a volunteer job at the local women's prison (oh takes place in Britian when people still road in horse drawn buggies) and becomes fasinated by one of the women in the all star unit. The woman claims she can talk to the dead and since spinster lady wants to talk to dead daddy she become fasinated by the girl. Soon they are plotting the girl's escape.

There's more to it but that's the basic plot.

Rating:
Summary: Another great novel from Sarah Waters
Review: AFFINITY by Sarah Waters

After reading Sarah Waters' wonderfully written book FINGERSMITH, I had to get a hold of her other two novels TIPPING THE VELVET and AFFINITY. As with FINGERSMITH, I came away from AFFINITY with a very satisfied feeling of having read yet another great book. AFFINITY is a complex story set in Victorian England about a young woman, Margaret Prior, who has been suffering from bouts of depression and loneliness. She has just suffered from a breakdown shortly after her father's death, and because of a suicide attempt, her mother, with the hopes of making a full recovery keeps her secluded in the house and administered with medications.

When it is suggested that Margaret visit the local woman's gaol (prison) as a form of therapy, she agrees and begins her frequent visits. She is known as a "lady visitor", one of many that come to the prisons to read and talk to the prisoners as a form of goodwill and charity. Soon she finds herself meeting and conversing with the various women that are being held in this gaol. She meets women from all walks of life and sees the horrible conditions in which they now live. And then she meets Selina Dawes. Margaret takes extra notice of this quiet sad woman. The reader immediately knows that she finds Selina special, and soon she becomes obsessed with the prisoner, and her story. It is all she can think of day and night. It becomes her life.

Selina Dawes is a medium, who is able to talk to the dead and perform acts of the paranormal. She is in prison due to the death of a friend of hers, Mrs. Brink, who allowed Selina to live with her as she helped Mrs. Brink contact the netherworld. Mrs. Brink died during one of Selina's paranormal sessions, and is being charged for assault and fraud. Learning about Selina's "crime", Margaret is in total sympathy with Selina and knows that Selina is in prison for a crime she did not commit, and soon the two become close.

The viewpoints of both women are seen through the journals of each of them respectively. Selina's journal-entries lead to the day of the supposed crime, while Margaret's journal takes us through the present story. And, as the book becomes more and more complicated, the journals begin to reveal more and more secret thoughts of these two women. The ending, as with FINGERSMITH, will totally shock the reader. Sarah Waters is the master of the double-twisted plot device, and although the story started on a slow note, the pace of the book picked up and did not let up until the very last page. Beautifully written with subtle undertones of lesbianism, this reviewer highly recommends AFFINITY.

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: When I first started reading, I wasn't sure how I would enjoy it. The progression was a little slow at first; but the by the middle, I was completely captivated in Waters' world. The foreshadowing is placed so excellently, and the characters so real, as to make the book quite wonderful. The ending actually made me cry; which I never do. I still don't know whether I want to scream at it or just cry more.

Rating:
Summary: compelling story, with a twist to the end.
Review: This is the first historical fiction novel that I have read. I found the language set in Victorian era a bit hard to get used to at first. The changing narrative also threw me a bit, but once I was familiar with Water's style it became easy to read.

Margaret becomes a Lady Visitor at Millbank prison to befriend those women who toil and suffer their isolation behind bars. Selina, a spiritulaist medium becomes the object of Margaret's visits. Their relationship grows and is the intricate point of this story. The story contains hints of ghosts, theivery, secrets and forbidden love. The ending was a twist and in my opinion, very real.

I give this novel at 3.5 out of 5 stars, as it was an interesting read, but not my usual taste in novels. Water's does build her characters and make them real to the reader. I would recommend this novel to others.

Rating:
Summary: Afiinity
Review: Breath taking story in which a young woman plays into the hands of love. This enrapturing tale is one for those of modern times. Great read, barely able to put it down as it's simply beautiful. Enjoy.