Porphyria's Lover by Maggie Power.
I recently re-read this. It's one of my all-time favourite books that I keep going back to. It's set in Victorian London and is the story of Kathleen Mangan who works in a brothel called The Resurrectionist Club (where the girls pretend to be possessed by spirits + do a fake medium act). She falls in love with Gabriel Feaver, who works there writing the scripts + having sex with the girls. He wants to be an actor + Kathleen gets involved in his schemes.
It's a beautifully written book, there's a kind of lush languor to the descriptions alongside a kind of viscereal physicality. It's very evocative + personally, I love the ending tho' it isn't a traditional happy ending as such. I like Kathleen but Gabriel is a bit of a dick tho' we do get to see how just about everyone is charmed by him. And I think if they ever did a TV series/film of this if they got the right cast it would be amazing (I'm thinking it would be similar to The Crimson Petal or some of Angela Carter's stuff - a kind of gothic dreamlike quality with a darker undercurrent).
It's a beautifully written book, there's a kind of lush languor to the descriptions alongside a kind of viscereal physicality. It's very evocative + personally, I love the ending tho' it isn't a traditional happy ending as such. I like Kathleen but Gabriel is a bit of a dick tho' we do get to see how just about everyone is charmed by him. And I think if they ever did a TV series/film of this if they got the right cast it would be amazing (I'm thinking it would be similar to The Crimson Petal or some of Angela Carter's stuff - a kind of gothic dreamlike quality with a darker undercurrent).