#BookReview ‘Deception’ by Lesley Pearse

About the book…

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 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 never speak of the past. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother.

Whatever the cost.

Alice’s journey into her mother’s past is one of incredulity as she discovers a woman shaped by a truly traumatic childhood . . .

My thanks to Courtney at Ed Pr for my gifted review copy of ‘Deception’ by Lesley Pearse which is out from July 7th published by Michael Joseph Books.

It is Lesley’s 30 th published novel which is absolutely something to be celebrated, and contains her trademark use of the complexities which arise when secrets are kept from those you love.

Sisters Emily and Alice are shocked when a stranger appears at their mother’s funeral ,telling them that their difficult,chameleon-esque mother was bigamously married to him.

Apart from having the most dreadful timing inaginable, this is a hammer blow to the relationship the sisters are holding onto to get through their grief.

Undoing their family history, however, brings up revelations about how and why their .other could be cold,distant and loving all at the same time.

When someone you expect unconditional love from,like a parent, makes you work so very hard for it, there must be reasons for this behaviour.

And as Emily and Alice dig,the image of the mother they knew and why she was the way she was begins to be reconciled with a sense of forgiveness for behaviour that was symptomatic of a life that was harsh,cruel and violent.

Peeling back the layers of a family life is what Leey does best,and long term or new readers alike will be delighted with ‘Deception’.

About the author…

Lesley Pearse is one of the UK’s best-loved novelists with fans across the globe and sales of over 2 million copies of her books to date. A true storyteller and a master of gripping storylines that keep the reader hooked from beginning to end, Pearse introduces you to characters that it is impossible not to care about or forget.

There is no formula to her books or easily defined genre. Whether crime as in ‘Till We Meet Again’, historical adventure like ‘Never Look Back’, or the passionately emotive ‘Trust Me’, based on the true-life scandal of British child migrants sent to Australia in the post war period, she engages the reader completely.
Truth is often stranger than fiction and Lesley’s life has been as packed with drama as her books. She was three when her mother died under tragic circumstances. Her father was away at sea and it was only when a neighbour saw Lesley and her brother playing outside without coats on that suspicion was aroused – their mother had been dead for some time.

With her father in the Royal Marines, Lesley and her older brother spent three years in grim orphanages before her father remarried – a veritable dragon of an ex army nurse – and Lesley and her older brother were brought home again, to be joined by two other children who were later adopted by her father and stepmother, and a continuing stream of foster children.

The impact of constant change and uncertainty in Lesley’s early years is reflected in one of the recurring themes in her books: what happens to those who are emotionally damaged as children. It was an extraordinary childhood and in all her books, Lesley has skilfully married the pain and unhappiness of her early experiences with a unique gift for storytelling.

Links-http://www.lesleypearse.com/

Twitter @midaspr @MichaelJBooks