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Tipping The Velvet

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Tipping The Velvet

By: Sarah Waters
Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
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About this listen

 Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.

A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'.©1998 Sarah Waters Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance

Critic Reviews

Intelligent, witty and stylish, the novel re-imagines a lost lesbian history through vivid sensual detail, evocative period slang (the title is a sexual euphemism) and a satisfyingly complex plot
Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit. This is a lively, gutsy, highly readable debut
An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaring Nineties. Imagine Jeanette Winterson on a good day collaborating with Judith Butler to pen a Sapphic Moll Flanders. It's gorgeous
This could be the most important debut of its kind since that of Jeanette Winterson
An extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit in a skilled, multi-layered pastiche of the lesbian historical romance (Christina Patterson)
Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power
Wonderful... a sensual experience that leaves the reader marveling at the author's craftsmanship, idiosyncrasy, and sheer effort
Compelling... readers of all sexes and orientations should identify with this gutsy hero as she learns who she is and how to love
Delectable... written in roguishly lilting prose filled with the sights, sounds and stenches of London street life
Glorious... an exceptional debut
Richly entertaining... Waters's debut offers terrific entertainment: swiftly paced, crammed with colorful depictions of 1890s London and vividly sketched Dickensian supporting characters, pulsating with highly charged (and explicitly presented) erotic heat
This lush tale fearlessly and feverishly exposes the political, social and sexual subversions of Victorian-era gender-benders: sapphists, libertines and passing women... Waters is a masterful storyteller... Nancy's search for love and identity is a raucous, passionate adventure and a rare, thrilling read
If you need your smut to be smart as well as steamy, Waters' 1998 debut might be right up your alley, so to speak. Imagine if Charles Dickens had been brave enough to centre lesbians and strap-ons in his work, and you're getting somewhere close to the brutal beauty and acerbic wit Waters conjures up on every page
Groundbreaking . . . the way Waters writes female desire is enjoyable, to quote one gay woman of my acquaintance, "regardless of persuasion" (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett)
All stars
Most relevant
brilliantly written, you do not want to miss out on this experience. now that it's finished I'll be going to chapter 1 to listen eagerly again.

Marvelous.

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the narrator, perfectly portrayed every character.
completed within days of starting.
I will have to read it again soon not to miss the characters too much.

the book is slightly different to the series.
the ending I feel is much better.
kitty and her rose. *flushes*

Love love love.

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Another brilliant novel from Sarah Waters. I have read both the paperback and listened to the audiobook, and can highly recommend either.

Sarah Waters is the bomb!

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I loved reading the tale of Nancy's rise and fall in English society and the partners she loved and lost along the way

lovely romance

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I have almost read all of sarah waters work and so far tipping the velvet remains the most original and beautiful. Also the most skillfully written. I truly recommend it.

Marvelous, truly magical

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