Reviewed by Emma Crowley
What happens when the person closest to you has led a life of deception?
After the funeral of her mother, Sally, Alice Kent is approached by a man named Angus Tweedy. He claims to be her father and tells her that he served time in prison for marrying Sally bigamously.
What does he hope to gain by telling her this now, thirty years on?
How can her adored dad Ralph not be her true father?
And why did her mother betray her so badly?
She had accepted Sally's many faults, and her reluctance to ever speak of the past. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother.
Whatever the cost.
As Alice journeys into the past she discovers her mother may never have been the woman she claimed to be . . .
Many thanks to ED PR for my copy of Deception to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Incredibly Deception is Lesley Pearse’s 30th book and as I sit here writing this review I can see all of her previous books taking pride of place on my bookshelves. Lesley’s writing has brought me many hours of reading pleasure and long may she continue to do so. She has written such a wide variety of books and her latest, Deception is an another good addition to her extensive back catalogue. I will say that this wasn’t my favourite read of hers but nonetheless it was enjoyable and I would never miss out on reading a book from my all time favourite author.
This is a dual timeline story moving forward and back between Alice in 2015 and her mother Sally in the 1950’s. Sally as a character goes through a number of name changes throughout the book for various reasons, all of which do become clear but it does require some attention to keep track of who she was and why she altered her name. But the timelines moved effortlessly back and forth and I didn’t find it difficult to follow the two strands of the story which eventually do intertwine.
Alice is attending her mother Sally’s funeral who has recently died of cancer. She has a sister Emily and her father is Ralph. Alice is divorced having married at only aged 21 but she is capable and can handle anything thrown at her and is still hoping for the great love affair that will turn her world upside down. Alice acknowledges straightaway that Sally wasn’t some sort of saint and their relationship has been a strained one. She could be selfish, callous and she had a strong assurance about her that she was always right. Sally avoided any questions regarding her life before her daughters were born which had always aroused curiosity in Alice but her mother was unrelenting in that she declined to answer questions. What could have happened in her past for her to be so secretive?
On the day of the funeral an unknown man appears claiming to be Alice’s father. Angus Tweedy was a man Alice had never seen or heard of before and she doesn’t quite know whether to believe what he says and delve a little deeper or else to send him away. He explains his background and situation to Alice, which I won’t detail here as it gives away far too much of the story even though the blurb does give away some of it, but it does make Alice sit up and take notice and she desperately wants to know more about the mother who was apparently not all she seemed and for very good reason. I did think, why was quite a lot revealed about Alice and her situation when Angus arrives but then over the course of the book I realised that there were many layers to Alice and you really have to sit back and just let the story unfold. 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.
Sally was very much a closed book but with her new found surprising information Alice is very much determined to open it up. Alice starts to dig into her mother’s past and she throws up some surprising facts that she perhaps wished she had left buried but at the same time a clearer picture of her heritage starts to form for her and along the way she does find some romance. The majority of the book centres around Sally and her deception of which there were many. It begs the question what happens when the person closest to you has led a life of lies and secrets and deceived so many?
The majority of Sally’s, whose real name was Janet, decisions can be justified due to the events that we learn occurred in her childhood which in turn subsequently moulded how she was an adult but still Janet was a character who I never really liked and she wasn’t one bit endearing. She sets about changing her life but to be honest as I couldn’t warm to her at all I didn’t feel overwhelming hope for her that she would do well in life. I didn’t find myself overly rooting for a positive outcome for her because to be honest she just came across as someone mostly out for herself. She was deceitful, conniving, a schemer, treacherous and nasty and despite her childhood I questioned was there really any necessary reason for her to turn out in such a manner? Janet goes through an awful lot but I think thanks to her upbringing she knew no different in how to act and she should have known better. Janet is driven by a demon and manipulation, always wanting to be the top dog and used both men and women to get money and power. But will the road she trod upon turn out to have what she feels be a happy ending? Will Alice too be able to find some understanding from what she uncovers?
This book reminded me of some of the author’s very early work which focused solely on one character. Georgia, Camellia, Ellie and many more all featured young girls/women down on their luck or who had gone through some incredible trauma or adversity. They were brilliant reads and real page turners and I remember virtually inhaling the stories because they were so gripping and I really felt as if I went on a journey with the characters and I was rooting for them. 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. She really had no redeeming features. There was just something missing in this story that I still can’t quite put my finger on and that big shock reveal well it wasn’t there for me and I was left wondering where did the story really go? It seemed to peter out towards the end. Saying all that, this is Lesley Pearse and I have been a fan for so long that I will always read anything she publishes just sadly this one didn’t always fully live up to my expectations.
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