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 roaries Nineties’ Independent on Sunday’Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit’ Observer