Tipping The Velvet

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.

"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'.

"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