Frankie recommends... Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Frankie says... This is hands-down the most ingenious historical fiction I've ever read. Published almost 25 years ago and nominated for both the Booker and the Women's Prize for Fiction, this book still stands as a chilling, twisted and extremely clever novel. With a plot of epic proportions, evocative settings and characters so vivid and varied, Waters is the true inheritor of the Victorian sensation novel. I seethe with envy for those who get to read this for the first time because you are in for the most jaw-dropping ride through the gloomy back streets and county houses of a Victorian-noir so dark and twisted you'll be gasping at every page. You must go into this book knowing as little as possible - trust your savvy bookseller and get ready to descend into the vagaries of Victorian London...

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From an award-winning author, Fingersmith is an extraordinary, ingenious tale of fraud, insanity and secrets. London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves - fingersmiths - under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her 'family'. But from the moment Sue draws breath, her fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.