The Night Watch - Sarah Waters

It seems almost fitting that I should be posting a review about this book in the week that marks the 70th anniversary of the Second World War as that is the setting for Sarah Water's fourth novel The Night Watch. I am completely unfamiliar with the author or indeed any of her former works and selected this book in the library purely because of its wartime setting and that it stated on the cover the book had been short-listed for the Booker Prize 2006 and the Orange prize, I was also unaware that Waters is known for her gay fiction novels and so was pleasantly surprised at having another angle on the book that I was not expecting. Before I even begin to ...  Read the complete review

The Nightwatch is Sarah Waters fourth novel and is one of the favourites to win this years Booker prize. It has received a good reception from critics, but a more mixed reaction from her readers. The title of this review reflects the fact that after Waters described "Tipping the Velvet" as a Victorian lesbian romp, she is now often seriously cited as has having created a new genre of the same name. This is the first of her books to step outside the Victorian era and takes place in 1940's London. As you might expect with a writer of her ability, the period is beautifully described and convincing in detail, without going over the top. There is a sense ...  Read the complete review

The opening pages introduce you to an intriguing array of characters, including: Kay, who seems to have no purpose in her life and lives in a building that seems liable to collapse at any time; Mr Mundy, who receives a strange kind of counseling designed to help his arthritis (from a man in Viv's building); and Duncan, who tells people that Mr Mundy is his uncle, though he isn't. Gradually, Walters establishes four main characters, Kay, Helen, Vivienne and Duncan (Viv's brother), each of whom seems to be suffering in some way that is connected to their past. The connections between them all are not immediately clear, and in fact are often tenuous, even where they should ...  Read the complete review

I have bought every book in print by this Author. Why ? I based my judgement on my experience of her works entitled “Fingersmith” and my favourite book, “Affinity”. Her descriptive work is astounding. What Sarah Waters achieved in her earlier books was to take every fragment of thought and reason, every emotion, dissect it, describe it and take the reader into the minds of her superbly drawn characters. This is a truly outstanding achievement for a modern writer, and I am not easily impressed. The former books were set against an historical background, and in this, Sarah Waters excels and the detail used is exquisitely believable. “The Night Watch” is based ...  Read the complete review

Author of fantastic 'Fingersmith' and 'Tipping the Velvet', Sarah Waters made a name for herself as an amazing storyteller and I was eager to read this as soon a sit became available. It did not disappoint and the following review was one I wrote for Waterstones.com not long after finishing it. In the Night Watch, Sarah Waters has moved away from the Victorian setting of her previous novels, forward into 1940s London; into the lives of people who are just trying to return to normality after years of war. Beginning in the late 1940's, the novel follows the movements of four characters as they realise that nothing can ever be the same for them again. ...  Read the complete review