Tipping The Velvet

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What to expect

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'.

Critics Review

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
Independent
Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit. This is a lively, gutsy, highly readable debut
Observer
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
Independent on Sunday
This could be the most important debut of its kind since that of Jeanette Winterson
Daily Telegraph
An extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit in a skilled, multi-layered pastiche of the lesbian historical romance
Observer
Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power
New York Times Book Review
Wonderful... a sensual experience that leaves the reader marveling at the author's craftsmanship, idiosyncrasy, and sheer effort
San Francisco Chronicle
Compelling... readers of all sexes and orientations should identify with this gutsy hero as she learns who she is and how to love
Newsday
Delectable... written in roguishly lilting prose filled with the sights, sounds and stenches of London street life
Seattle Times
Glorious... an exceptional debut
Boston Globe
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
Kirkus
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
Publishers Weekly
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
i Paper

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
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5.0
georgia.nairn 30/07/2025

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