{"id":270,"date":"2020-10-05T22:35:51","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T02:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreadingandreviewing.wordpress.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:03:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:03:58","slug":"a-pretty-deceit-anna-lee-huber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"A Pretty Deceit – Anna Lee Huber"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You should be familiar with Anna Lee Huber’s name if you’ve read some of my earliest reviews (Lady Darby), and I reviewed the first book in her Verity Kent series (This Side of Murder)<\/em>. I have never (a strong word, but true!) been disappointed by a Huber novel, and the fourth installment in the Verity Kent series, A Pretty Deceit<\/em>, did not disappoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we last left Verity Kent, she was convinced that a prominent public official had set up her friend for murder, and had arranged for more deaths to cover up other misdeeds. In this novel, we see her pursuing her investigation into Lord Ardmore to try and bring him to justice for his crimes. Before she can get very far, though, she\u2019s summoned to her aunt\u2019s estate to investigate thefts, damage to her property by occupying airmen during the war, and a disappearing maid.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visit to her childhood playground is difficult for Verity, as facing her family and the loss of its various members during the war is challenging. However, she also realizes that it\u2019s time to begin facing some of her fears and grief as it\u2019s almost been a year since the war has ended. With her dramatic aunt who belittles her son Reggie, blind as a result of his war injuries, Verity finds enough challenges outside of the mystery she\u2019s supposed to be solving. It only adds more complications when the gardener turns up dead, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verity does a fair amount of traveling in this novel as she\u2019s caught between investigating at her aunt\u2019s and assisting Max, Earl of Ryde in pursuing the Ardmore investigation. I felt pretty sympathetic towards the end of the book as Verity looked and seemed so exhausted. Her relationship with Sidney, however, seems to be as good as ever. It was good to see him supporting her in her endeavors to both sort out her aunt\u2019s troubles and to investigate Ardmore. This book brought out Sidney\u2019s protectiveness of Verity, which was great to see as they were finally working as a team instead of against each other. I think this was the most cohesive they\u2019ve been in the series, which was uplifting.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Pretty Deceit<\/em> was a great installment in the Verity Kent series. I always enjoy Anna Lee Huber\u2019s writing, and this was no exception. It was probably the most complex plot in this series yet, with lots of pieces that didn\u2019t seem to fit together and that I couldn\u2019t make any sense of until the solution was presented to me. Readers may find it helpful to reread the third book in the series, Penny for Your Secrets<\/em>, before starting this one as it will familiarize them with the Ardmore case. Although we discover a lot more about Ardmore\u2019s reach in this novel, Verity and her team come only a few steps closer to finding a solution – so I am left eagerly awaiting the next novel for further developments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You should be familiar with Anna Lee Huber’s name if you’ve read some of my earliest reviews (Lady Darby), and I reviewed the first book in her Verity Kent series (This Side of Murder). I have never (a strong word, but true!) been disappointed by a Huber novel, and the fourth installment in the VerityContinue reading “A Pretty Deceit – Anna Lee Huber”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30,52,123,165,283,296,437,438],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-anna-lee-huber","tag-book-review","tag-english-mystery","tag-historical-mystery","tag-murder-mystery","tag-new-release","tag-verity-kent","tag-verity-kent-mysteries","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/a-pretty-deceit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}