Photo: Supplied
The Walworth Beauty
Michele Roberts
Bloomsbury $24.99
In the tradition of A.S. Byatt's Possession, this book explores two parallel stories 160 years apart. In 1851, Joseph Benson is employed by the real-life figure Henry Mayhew as a researcher for what will become Mayhew's classic work of sociology, London Labour and the London Poor. In this guise, Joseph finds himself in what he assumes is a brothel, in a small backstreet called Apricot Place. In 2011, a 60-something former lecturer in literature called Madeleine takes a flat in what is, unbeknownst to her, the same building. But what are the strange noises and voices she can hear on the stairs and through the wall? Gradually, these two equally compelling narratives develop into a ghost story, so delicately told that the reader barely catches on. This is a beautifully structured tale of families, sex and women's lives.