Affinity
Sarah Waters
book reviews:
· general fiction
· chick lit/romance
· sci-fi/fantasy
· graphic novels
· nonfiction
· audio books

Click here for the curledup.com RSS Feed

· author interviews
· children's books @
   curledupkids.com
· DVD reviews @
   curledupdvd.com

newsletter
win books
buy online
links

home

for authors
& publishers


for reviewers

click here to learn more




Buy *Affinity* online

Affinity
Sarah Waters
Riverhead Books
Paperback
351 pages
January 2002
rated 4 of 5 possible stars

buy this book now or browse millions of other great products at amazon.com

previous review next review

At Millbrook Prison, in 1874 London, the reader meets Margaret Prior, a lady "Visitor" who comes to offer solace to the female inmates. Our Miss Prior has recently been ill, recuperating slowly from the death of her beloved father, now determined to commit her energies to the less fortunate. Millbrook Prison is a huge edifice of gothic proportions, towers and tunnels and geometric patterns leading to the stark chill of individual cells, where the greater part of each prisoner's day is spent in isolation.

Miss Prior is interested in the lives of the women prisoners -- particularly Selina Dawes, a spirit medium jailed for fraud and assault, who seems a gentle, if lonely, soul. Miss Prior is Selina's solitary visitor, beside the "spirits" that whisper encouragement every evening when the lights are extinguished.

This is Victorian England at its apex, when women of Miss Prior's class are wrapped in innocence, nursing a constant need for comfort and protection. When Margaret forms an attachment to Selina, she keeps her thoughts to herself, speaking only through the pages of her diary. The obsession appears to be mutual; Selina calls Margaret "Aurora", promises that Margaret is her "affinity", that together they are two halves of one whole.

On a bitter January day, Margaret visits Selina one last time, the night chosen for Selina's carefully plotted escape. Margaret has made secret preparations: passports, travel arrangements, clothing, adequate funds. Selina promises to come for her beloved "Aurora" before dawn. Does Selina escape, and what are the consequences of this act for Margaret? Affinity is a masterpiece of the tension of the unexpected. Page by page, author Sarah Waters beguiles the reader, step by step through a twisting maze, as she leads us to the shocking denouement of her masterful tale.



© 2003 by Luan Gaines for Curled Up With a Good Book


Also by Sarah Waters:

buy *Affinity* online
click here for more info
Click here to learn more about this month's sponsor!


fiction · sf/f · comic books · nonfiction · audio
newsletter · free book contest · buy books online
review index · links · · authors & publishers
reviewers

site by ELBO Computing Resources, Inc.