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turophile 's review for:
And Only to Deceive
by Tasha Alexander
Wow. I loved this book. It’s more of a mystery than a romance but the romantic elements just tugged at my heart. It’s so rare when I read a book and wish so hard that things would turn out for fictional characters.
{Spoilers start here}
The heroine, Lady Emily, was one of the upper class in Victorian England and realized that even though she’d be content to stay single there was no way that her family would allow it. After multiple offers, she agrees to marry the first man, Phillip, whom she finds remotely tolerable. She doesn’t know him and certainly hasn’t fallen in love, but marrying him will get her out of her mother’s house. He’s a big game hunter who loves to travel and leaves for Africa soon after her wedding. In Africa he falls sick with a fever and dies. About a year after his death, she has not emerged completely from mourning when Phillip’s best friend Colin Hargreaves comes to visit her and tells her about a villa in Greece that Phillip owned and would have wanted Lady Emily to visit.
She’d never known of her husband’s interest in Greece and antiquities, but Emily begins to delve into the art he’d donated to the British museum and pursue Greek literature while reading journals that her husband left behind. As she studies more, she learns more about Phillip and about herself. And even though he’s dead, she finally falls in love with him and regrets the opportunity that she had lost.
Meanwhile, she stumbles across a mystery regarding her husband. Could he have been a criminal? She travels to Paris and back and back to Paris again as she investigates. She starts to question who she can really trust.
Admittedly, I found it easy to figure out who she’d end up with from the beginning of the book, but still as the story progressed I kept hoping that her husband would turn out to be alive. It was painful seeing this journey as she gets to know who he was and realizing she’ll never be able to act on that knowledge.
Mystery or romance? However you categorize it, this was an outstanding book.
4/5 stars.
{Spoilers start here}
The heroine, Lady Emily, was one of the upper class in Victorian England and realized that even though she’d be content to stay single there was no way that her family would allow it. After multiple offers, she agrees to marry the first man, Phillip, whom she finds remotely tolerable. She doesn’t know him and certainly hasn’t fallen in love, but marrying him will get her out of her mother’s house. He’s a big game hunter who loves to travel and leaves for Africa soon after her wedding. In Africa he falls sick with a fever and dies. About a year after his death, she has not emerged completely from mourning when Phillip’s best friend Colin Hargreaves comes to visit her and tells her about a villa in Greece that Phillip owned and would have wanted Lady Emily to visit.
She’d never known of her husband’s interest in Greece and antiquities, but Emily begins to delve into the art he’d donated to the British museum and pursue Greek literature while reading journals that her husband left behind. As she studies more, she learns more about Phillip and about herself. And even though he’s dead, she finally falls in love with him and regrets the opportunity that she had lost.
Meanwhile, she stumbles across a mystery regarding her husband. Could he have been a criminal? She travels to Paris and back and back to Paris again as she investigates. She starts to question who she can really trust.
Admittedly, I found it easy to figure out who she’d end up with from the beginning of the book, but still as the story progressed I kept hoping that her husband would turn out to be alive. It was painful seeing this journey as she gets to know who he was and realizing she’ll never be able to act on that knowledge.
Mystery or romance? However you categorize it, this was an outstanding book.
4/5 stars.