Affinity by Sarah Waters

Waters’s second novel takes the richly evoked Victoriana of her debut, Tipping the Velvet, and interlaces an ineffable layer of the supernatural and uncanny. Set in the imposing Millbank Prison, Affinity explores the burgeoning attraction between a ‘lady visitor’ and a sinister, manipulative psychic in beautifully crafted prose and gloriously gothic imagery.   

Set in and around the women's prison at Milbank in the 1870s, Affinity is an eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing literary mystery and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale.

Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prisons more unlikely inmates - the imprisoned spiritualist - Selina Dawes. Sympathetic to the plight of this innocent-seeming girl, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions.