The Paying Guests

London in 1922 is a tense place. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. The Wrays had no idea how drastically their new tenants would change Frances's life, or how far-reaching and destructive the disruptions will be as emotions rise and frustration builds.