Both women are restricted due to their gender and their class but it very different ways. The book deals with class issues that were rampant in Victorian England (and still are today) by focusing on one woman who is poor and has been raised to be a thief, or a fingersmith, and another woman who has been raised in a wealthy household by a weird uncle. Sue, a lower-class thief living in London, is caught up in a scheme by a man known as Gentleman to con a wealthy woman, Maud, out of her inheritance. I very rarely rate a book 5 stars out of 5 but this one deserves it so much. It’s fantastic and I can guarantee that I’m just going to gush about this book for the next 500 words of this review. There have been two adaptations of Fingersmith since its publication: Fingersmith (BBC, 2005) and The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016). She gained her PhD and her thesis was entitled Wolfskins and togas: lesbian and gay historical fictions, 1870 to the present. I’ve read Tipping the Velvet (1998) and The Night Watch (2006) but I’ve never reviewed one of her books. Sarah Waters is a Welsh writer best known for her neo-Victorian novels which feature lesbian protagonists. Once in, however, Sue begins to regret her decision. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives–Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, they all will share in Maud’s vast inheritance. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs Sucksby, a “baby farmer.” Mrs Sucksby’s household also hosts a transient family of petty thieves–fingersmiths–for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. Summary: No one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

Sarah waters handmaiden