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3.75/5. There are so, so many things I love about Sarah Waters' writing. Her prose is stunning � it's (for lack of a better term) literary, but still easy to get into, and makes her books simultaneously challenging and comforting, which I think is a truly unique feature. Her writing also always manages to completely envelop me in the atmosphere of her novels and she's such an expert at inserting subtle, but poignant commentary on the historical periods her novels are set in. Plus, her characters feel like real human beings and while I don't always necessarily like them, they're written with such care and depth that I can always understand and feel for them.
That being said, I ended up giving The Paying Guests "only" 3.75 stars overall. In trying to describe what bothered me, I'm basically just repeating what I said in my review of her other novel, The Little Stranger - it's way too long. I definitely agree with what Abbie mentions in her review about Sarah Waters needing a harsher editor. Especially in the latter half of the novel the plot loses itself in too many unnecessary repetitions and I didn't feel the slow-burning prickle that made the first half so enjoyable (which, thinking about it now, might have been her point as it fits the direction the plot is taking, but still). Basically, as with The Little Stranger, this could've easily been a 5-star read for me had it been 100-150 pages shorter.
I have now read three of Sarah Waters' six books and I'm incredibly excited to read the remaining three, especially Fingersmith, which seems to be her most popular one!