Deception: The Sunday Times Bestseller 2022

Product Information

On the day of her ebullient mother Sally’s funeral in Devon, 35-year-old Alice Kent has mixed feelings. It begs the question what happens when the person closest to you has led a life of lies and secrets and deceived so many? She already knows her mother was manipulative at times, vain, very secretive and never spoke of the past.

As she continues to talk to him, the young woman and former courtesan finds herself torn when it comes to matters of the heart. What I liked most about this authors writing was her ability to create characters that were complicated and messy but very relatable and likeable. She has also worked as a nanny and a Playboy bunny, and designed and made clothes to sell to boutiques. A true highlight for me was Sally, a very intriguing character, leading a very colourful life, I could have easily read a whole book on just her and what happened. Her mother’s death has caused successful hotel group manager Alice to reflect on her own brief and disastrous marriage at the age of just 21, and her secret hope that, despite the enjoyment of her single life, she might still find the love affair that ‘turns her life upside-down.Another thing that did niggle away at me was why didn’t Alice tell Emily what she had learned because if she had have done this Emily could have been much more involved in the investigations. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother. Fast-paced, and packed with surprises, this is an intriguing mystery which explores the lasting impact of trauma.

It also becomes quite clear why she also chose to remain a closed book with her children and second husband.A gifted storyteller who continues to give fans, old and new, quality entertainment and another addictive, engrossing saga. Alice throws herself wholeheartedly into tracking down people who knew her mother many years ago and who might help her find out the many secrets that she has kept from her family for years. International bestselling author Lesley Pearse has lived a life as rich with incidents, setbacks and joys as any found in her novels. Alice agrees to meet Angus the following day, and here she discovers more about him and his bigamous marriage to her mother. Faced with this staggering deception, Alice decides she must learn the whole, terrible truth about her mother.

As a young girl, she has lived in the Seven Dials in a brothel for all of her life and for most of it had no idea what was really going on in the name of commerce upstairs. Their father had been at work at sea and a neighbor spied Lesley and her brother outside without coats and that led to finding out that their mother had died. Instead of living in a bubble as part of the sex trade world, she is now directly part of it unwillingly. No matter what she found out, she always seemed to be able to keep calm and understand things from her mother’s perspective. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am so pleased that Lesley is back at the top of her game.Deception had echoes of those books but because the main character wasn’t all that likeable I didn’t feel as deeply invested as I should have.