Summary of Sarah Waters's The Paying Guests is a historical romance novel and crime story. It is set just outside postwar London in the year 1922.

Frances Wray is a twenty-six-year-old single woman who lives with her widowed mother, Emily. After losing her two brothers in the war, Frances is left to take care of her mother and thehousehold. Her father mismanaged the family's financial affairs before his death, leaving his wife and daughter struggling to get by with few resources. The Wrays are forced to dismiss thehousehold help, leaving Frances to do most of the household chores. Frances decides she must rent out some of the rooms in their house to help with money issues.

Frances makes arrangements for Leonard and Lilian Barber, a young, married, working class couple, to move into the rooms on the second floor of the Wray home. Leonard's friend, Charles Wismuth, helps them move in...