When telling us about a dirty mirror, we're told that the 'small looking glass as cloudy and as speckled as the back of an old man's hand.' I had the sensation then - and I felt it again in the years that followed, every time I made a similar trip back stage - that I had stepped into the workings of a giant clock, stepped through the elegant casing to the dusty, greasy, restless machinery that lay, all hidden from the common eye, behind it.' When describing being backstage at the theater after a performance, 'I caught a glimpse of ladders and ropes and trailing gas-pipes of boys in caps and aprons, wheeling baskets, manoeuvring lights. What kept me hooked was the astoundingly good writing: A book I couldn't put down, and not just for the positively raunchy (and at times touching) sex scenes that had me blushing to my hairline. So, what did it leave me with? A book that shot a breath of life into all of those tired old themes. Yet, alongside these nearly foreign concepts were the universal themes found in all great works of literature: passion, lust, betrayal, scandal, violence, redemption, and love. Tipping the Velvet carries a variety of themes that have bored me since my first Women's Studies classes in college: identity, cross-dressing, gender roles, and sexuality. This mistake was a blessing, and this novel renewed my faith in modern fiction. Good thing I thought that 'tipping the velvet' was a reference to the theater (hint: it's not) and mistakenly believed I was buying a book about East End actresses. A book about cross-dressing lesbians in Victorian England wouldn't spark enough interest in me to get past the title page. I have a job, a kid to raise, and an already low tolerance for contemporary fiction. If someone had given me the bare bones outline of Tipping the Velvet and suggest I read it, I'd have kindly told them to piss off. It's not often that I like a book, so listen up and listen well.

Tipping the velvet