Review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Title: Fingersmith 
Author: Sarah Waters
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Riverhead
Publish Date: October 1, 2002
Source: Owned

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "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 she draws breath, Sue's fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away."

My Two Cents:

"Fingersmith" is the story of Sue, a young woman in Victorian England who gets tied up in a scheme to help an evil man marry an heiress, abandon her, and then get her inheritance. He promises that Sue can share in the spoils. Sue has had a hard life on the streets and easily agrees to participate. What will follow is a series of events that will let you think you know where the story is going only to have everything turned on its head. This is a strong story that will keep you on the edge of your seat to see where the pieces fall.

There isn't a lot to like about the characters in this book at first but that is exactly what makes it fun to see how the characters change throughout the book. Sue originally joins in the scheme to defraud Maud without any care in the world. Maud, the heiress, plays her cards as a pathetic, sheltered heiress but she's hiding secrets that shape how everything is turned on its head. These two have more in common than it first seems. Both of them are really products of their origins and I loved seeing how their origins continue to shape them. It seems that it is their tragic beginnings that push them together in a lot of ways throughout the book.

The setting of the book was great. I really thought that Waters did a great job of capturing both the lower classes and upper classes in Victorian England. This is a very atmospheric book with a lot of historical detail that brought the action to life!

This is my first book that I have read by Sarah Waters. I really like the way that she writes to take the reader in one direction before totally changing course. This book had a lot of twists and went in a completely different way than I expected. While not a mystery, this book almost had a mystery-like feel to it because of how the action drives towards figuring out what was going on. I know this won't be the last book I read by Waters!