Sarah Waters writes like a dream, but I still ended up feeling a bit resentful at having committed myself to working through the novel's 500+ pages and concluding that it was all a bit thin.Set just after World War Two it's about the relationship between a youngish country doctor and the family who live at their decaying stately home nearby. There's the traumatised ex-serviceman son going bonkers upstairs, the Miss Haversham-like mother, the big-boned but big-hearted spinster daughter to whom the doctor is almost reluctantly drawn, and the maid. And - perhaps - a weird supernatural presence.
When the family dog attacks a small girl for no reason, strange marks appear on walls, bells ring without anyone ringing them, doors lock themselves etc. the doctor is sure there must be a rational explanation for it all. The family aren't so sure.
It's interesting in its detail about life in Britain immediately post-war and the breakdown of class-barriers (the doctor is a working-class boy come up in the world), but I wanted more.
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