Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

From the oyster huts of Whitstable to the music halls of Victorian London, Tipping the Velvet is the glorious first novel from this much-loved author.  Beautiful new edition.
 
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'.
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'Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power' New York Times Book Review
'An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaring Nineties' Independent on Sunday'
Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit' Observer