Totally immersive with brilliantly drawn characters... <b>a page-turning thriller while managing to be a tender love story</b>
Adam Kay
<b>Intensely atmospheric, impeccably paced, and cunningly structured</b>, this is that rarity in contemporary fiction: a deeply serious novel that is also a thumping great read
- Douglas Kennedy, Mail on Sunday
There are always novels that you envy people for not having read yet, for the pleasure they still have to come. Well, this is one. <b>Long, dark, twisted and satisfying, it's a fabulous piece of writing... An unforgettable experience</b>
- Julie Myerson, Guardian
<b>One of the best twists of any book, one that lifts the novel from a brilliant piece of modern Victoriana to something altogether more original and daring</b>... <i>Fingersmith</i>, like so many great books, calls into question our desire to fit novels into restrictive boxes... If you like a great story, brilliantly told, you'll love this book
- Laura Shepherd-Robinson, The Times
<b>A chilling, ingenious erotic thriller - unputdownable </b>
Sunday Express
She distils a slice of London Victoriana, involving pickpockets, orphans and identity, into a fantastic plot and handles the story so well that you just can't wait to get to the end
Tracy Chevalier
<b>High spirited and utterly compelling</b>
- Robert McCrum, Observer
Serious entertainment... <b>One of the most startling plot twists you'll ever read</b>
- Nick Hornby, The Times
A thrillerish plot, fast-moving with umpteen cunning twists, it is inhabited by richly human characters whose fortunes instantly engage the reader
Sunday Telegraph
<b><i>Fingersmith</i>'s tight and intricate plotting and full-flavour characters follow in a fine tradition of gothic storytelling, full of love, villains and intrigue</b>
- Jane Perry, Observer
This disquietingly twisted tale will engross
- Isobel Montgomery, Guardian
Deliciously brazen... A smart and seductive enchantment
Los Angeles Times
<i>Fingersmith</i> is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor <i>Affinity</i>, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs
Travis Elborough
<i>Oliver Twist </i>with a twist... <b>Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses</b>... A pulsating story
New York Times Book Review
Superb storytelling. <i>Fingersmith</i> is gripping; so suspenseful and twisting is the plot that for the last 250 pages, I read at breakneck speed
USA Today
<b>A deftly plotted thriller... absorbing and elegant</b>
Entertainment Weekly
A marvelous pleasure... Waters's noted attention to historical detail and her beautifully sensitive dialogue help to anchor the force-five plot twisters
Washington Post
Calls to mind the feverishly gloomy haunts of Charlotte and Emily Bronte... Elaborate and satisfying
Seattle Times
A richly woven tale of duplicity and passion... nobody writing today surpasses the precocious Waters's virtuosic handling of narrative complexity and thickly textured period detail. This is a marvelous novel
Kirkus
A sweeping read
Boston Globe
Astonishing narrative twists
Newsday