Deception: The Sunday Times Bestseller 2022

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Belle is a simple courtesan, but she knows that the assets she has now will not last. She is going to have to find a way out of this world, whether finding something else to do or escaping completely. Belle has to get out and get away from the men who want her attention and this world entirely. But the road ahead will be full of dangers, even for someone as resourceful as she is. Her first novel was published in 1993 and is called Georgia. It was followed by the novels Tara, Charity, Ellie, and several more. She has also been published in the Great Escapes Collection. I loathed Sally at the start of Deception, but as she transmogrified into her different personas and Alice found out more about her, I felt I had come to know a real woman. Her life choices may have been forced upon her, unwisely chosen or even criminal, but what Lesley Pearse does so well is to show the reader why Sally behaved as she did so that there’s a reality to her actions and an understanding In the reader. 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?

UK historical fiction sensation Lesley Pearse is in top form with her latest melodrama about a daughter confronted with a truth that leads to her unraveling the past.

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She had accepted Sally's many faults, and her reluctance to never speak of the past. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother. I really liked Alice, mostly due to her ability to be rational and level headed. No matter what she found out, she always seemed to be able to keep calm and understand things from her mother’s perspective. Not only that but she carried the burden of this on behalf of her younger sister and her dad to protect them. It was interesting to read about Alice realising that some of her own character traits were inherited from her mother. Just read the three Belle books. Is there a follow up hope so. Love to know if she moved to France Reply But, after one drunken rage too many, she has the courage to leave him. Eve is warned that it's a difficult path, yet she needs to give her children hope for the future.

What does he hope to gain 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? Once again, Lesley Pearse delivers a captivating blend of personal drama and mystery in "Deception." Her writing style is a breath of fresh air, effortlessly guiding readers through a story that is both engaging and easily digestible. Alice talks to Angus and discovers that her mother is not the woman that she thought she was and that her life was all a lie. Because of this she decides to find out the truth about her mother, visiting places of her mother’s past and her old friends to discover the truth.

Before starting this book, I didn’t know if I was going to be getting sad vibes, happy vibes or something in between and to be honest, I feel a mix up of all of the emotions after having finished. Following Alice’s journey into her mother’s past felt like I was experiencing all of the surprises along with her. It was certainly a reminder to me that we’re all just humans. We tend to hold our parents to such a high standard when in reality they make mistakes and bad decisions the same as anyone else. Personally, I found "Deception" to be thoroughly enjoyable. Lesley Pearse’s work is a definite recommendation if you have an affinity for crime and mystery genres.