“A historical mystery to delight fans of Agatha Christie or Daphne du Maurier.” —Bookpage In the aftermath of the Great War, the line between friend and foe may be hard to discern, even for indomitable former Secret Service agent Verity Kent, in award-winning author Anna Lee Huber’s thrilling mystery series. Peacetime has brought little respite for Verity Kent. Intrigue still abounds, even … Verity Kent. Intrigue still abounds, even within her own family. As a favor to her father, Verity agrees to visit his sister in Wiltshire. Her once prosperous aunt has fallen on difficult times and is considering selling their estate. But there are strange goings-on at the manor, including missing servants, possible heirloom forgeries, and suspicious rumors—all leading to the discovery of a dead body on the grounds.
While Verity and her husband, Sidney, investigate this new mystery, they are also on the trail of an old adversary—the shadowy and lethal Lord Ardmore. At every turn, the suspected traitor seems to be one step ahead of them. And even when their dear friend Max, the Earl of Ryde, stumbles upon a code hidden among his late father’s effects that may reveal the truth about Ardmore, Verity wonders if they are really the hunters—or the hunted . . .
Praise for Anna Lee Huber’s Penny for Your Secrets
“Stellar mystery . . . a great read for fans of the series and all who enjoy
Downton Abbey-era fiction.”
—Booklist
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Another great series by Anna Lee Huber. I thoroughly enjoy the characters. The series first started out as Verity Kent being a widow or so she thought? Her husband Sidney Kent was presumed dead & a hero for 18 months until he has secretly asked his wife to go to a house party. Which there she discovers they have put her in a mystery & possible danger. Now she doesn’t know who to trust that is part of this group of people that were invited to this gathering. Can she find the person who is a traitor to their country & killed her husband?
4 books later, Verity& Sidney Kent are slowly trying to work on their marriage. One adventure at a time. It doesn’t help that prior to discovering her husband was alive she happened to be attracted to Max Earl of Ryle & Sidney’s commanding officer. Now that she is a wife again, they are just friends. But there is always some sexual tension that builds up. Even Sidney notices it.
During their time together they realize that they have both changed since the day they married & he shipped out for days later.
They both have trauma, from war & missions. Sidney is aware that Verity was more than a secretary for the government.
Now they are working together to find out what is happening at her Husband’s Estate. Items are missing, it looks as though there have been some type of group working in her Aunt’s warehouse. Everything that is happening still relates to the war & secrets. This also affects Max & what his father may have done during the war. Did Max’s father become a traitor to his country? Or was he in fact protecting agents, top-secret information to protect his country?
Read this novel in the Verity Kent Saga.
You really will enjoy each book & the mysteries that the Kent couple have to puzzle together to keep themselves alive. As well as find out the truth behind their Friend Max’s father’s secret.
Read 9.20.2020
Another great book from Anna Lee Huber in the Verity Kent series!! I really love this series and really look forward to each new one; I just wish she could write faster!! 🙂
This outing finds Verity and Sydney, along with Max and Alec, still hunting for Lord Ardmore and his henchmen. On their way to meet Max, Verity and Sydney are asked to look in on her aunt [who’s house was used during the war and she is upset at the damage left and thinks that Sydney can help persuade the higher-ups to repair all the damage AND she has had things stolen from her as well, so she is in a state] and cousin and while they are there, a maid disappears and a man is murdered. Verity leaves that in the hands of the local constabulary, until it becomes very clear that the dreaded Lord Ardmore is more involved than they realized and they have to fight against time and some serious bad guys to solve everything with their lives still intact. <--I am not sure I took a breathe in those last few chapters [as everything unfolded], even though I was pretty sure I knew who was behind some of the things happening. Even with that knowledge, the reveal was sad and devastating and WHOOSH, wowsers. And now all that love these books have to wait...again, I think she should write faster! 😉 Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review
This is the fourth and final book in the Verity Kent series. This is the first book I’ve read in the series . . . and by the author . . . but it works well as a standalone. I am not a big fan of books set during the time during and immediately after WWI, but I found the storyline to be interesting. The characters are well developed and you will enjoy traveling through the pages with Verity and Sydney. This is a good book to read if you enjoy historical mysteries.
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
I’m a fan! Love the characters, the author’s storytelling, the time period & the narrator.
“The air smelled not of spring – new growth and freshly turned earth – but fetid decay, smoke, and desperation.”
A Pretty Deceit (Book #4) starts with Verity Kent on a mission during the Great War that will come back to haunt to her.
The hunt is still on for evidence on Lord Ardmore and his secrets that have Verity, Sidney, Max (The Earl of Ryde) and Alec Xavier searching in a race against time.
“The trouble was, Ardmore was much to good at covering his tracks, or eliminating the people who could make those connections.” (quote from the book)
However, Verity and Sidney get a bit sidetracked when Verity is requested by her parents to help her Aunt Ernestine with fakes, forgeries and missing heirlooms at Littlemote. What they don’t expect is another murder and the intrigue that surrounds it.
“Aunt Ernestine had always been a woman enamored with her own consequence, and never content enough until everyone knew it.” (quote from the book)
I enjoyed both intrigues and how they weave together. I also enjoyed the reality of Verity and Sidney’s continuing marital growth while working with the two men who still love her.
“Somehow it seemed that for every step we took toward each other, for every secret we shared, every complication we laid to rest another rose to replace it, forcing us to continually pivot and shift, and sometimes hurdle the impediments that lay between us to reach each other.” (quote from the book)
There is much more that is conveyed within the pages of this latest mystery. One element being the impact the war has had on the women left behind and the men whose injuries, both mental and physical, have on them.
I highly recommend this post World War I historical mystery series by the ever talented Ms Huber. I do recommend you start at the beginning with “This Side of Murder”.
A Pretty Deceit
By Anna Lee Huber
A Pretty Deceit is book four in the Verity Kent series and just like the others, I continue to enjoy this amazing cozy mystery series. This one does not fall short of suspects when a dead body is found on the grounds of her family’s manor in Wiltshire. I love visiting Sydney and Verity once more and the twists in this mystery will have you guessing and scratching your head and keep you engaged to look for clues. I loved this fun and witty cozy mystery that deals with art forgeries and amazing historically accurate details of the time. I really enjoyed this one.
Love this series. Set in England after WWI following the aftershocks of those in war & those who waited for soldiers to come home. And there’s always a mystery to solve.
I really enjoy this series.
The author does a bang up job of putting the reader right in the middle of the time and the place(s).
The aunt is quite a pill and Verity and her husband are very patient with her. Certainly more so than I would be.
There are two mysteries here. One gets resolved in this book, but the other continues as an over-arching mystery.
It is intriguing to watch how characters who seemed to be “bad guys” sometimes save the day.
It leaves it all quite entertaining.
Ms. Huber does a wonderful job of historical research. When reading a book she authored, you get a well constructed mystery as well as learn a great deal of what was truly going on at the time and in this series, the aftermath and destruction of lives from WWI.
Verity Kent and her husband Sidney have been asked to visit her aunt’s estate to deal with issues related to missing heirlooms and minor destruction to the estate as a result of its being used by the RAF but when they get there they discover so much more.
I highly recommend Ms. Huber and the Verity Kent series. They are both autobuys for me.
I received an ARC via NetGalley but the opinion expressed is my own.
Anna Lee Huber’s Verity Kent Mystery series never ceases to impress me, and the fourth installment A PRETTY DECEIT is fabulous!
It is October 1919, and Verity and her husband Sydney are called to her aunt’s home, where the RAF has left the manor in disrepair. Even worse, Aunt Ernestine believes some heirlooms have been stolen and/or replaced by forgeries. Verity finds more than she bargained for when a missing maid and estate handyman are murdered. Feeling a kinship with Mr. Green’s wife, the prime suspect, Verity, along with Sydney and their friends Max and Alec, seek to get to the bottom of things. They are also chasing Lord Ardmore, who, despite their best efforts, always manages to be one step ahead of them, with hopes of revealing his traitorous nature and deeds.
Huber is well known for her attention to historical detail, and she does a wonderful job portraying the hardships of soldiers and the ramifications of loss immediately following WWI. These characters are exceptionally well developed and leap off the page. Verity, a former spy, is made of tough mettle, and she and Sydney, a veteran, have flaws and issues that make them all the more appealing. Verity’s tangled history with both Max and Alec bring added tension to the tale, and I love them for it (I admit that I have been Team Max from the very beginning of the series). I particularly enjoy the addition of Verity’s cousin Reggie here and hope he appears in future books.
The mystery is complex and cleverly executed with a consistently exciting pace. There are plenty of plot twists, travel, cat and mouse pursuit, and intrigue to keep readers on their toes. A PRETTY DECEIT may be read as a standalone, but I suggest reading the series in order for maximum enjoyment and understanding of the series long story arc.
A PRETTY DECEIT is one of my best reads of the year, and I impatiently wait for the next adventure featuring Verity and crew.
I received an ARC of this title from the author and Kensington Publishers and voluntarily shared my thoughts here.
Not content to bring her readers just one mystery, Ms. Huber gives two, not including the lead up to the next book in the series. The book is rife with PTSD, not only Sidney but side characters. And in truth, Verity is also suffering PTSD. She misses several important clues, I feel because of it. It was very interesting how the mysteries intersected. It was a welcome return for Max, slightly less welcoming to see Alec. They both played major roles in the mysteries and in Verity’s life. I would like to see more of Sidney other then as Verity’s shadow. So many bad guys, not limited to her family. However I did like her cousin Reg and hope to see more of him, he was very perceptive. This is not a standalone. It should be read in order with the previous books. Recommended.
A Mystery Within A Mystery
Verity Kent , secret service agent, is glad the war is over, however there are still secrets to uncover. Along with her husband Sidney they are working to find proof of evil works by a traitorous agent within the secret service ranks.
Her father calls and convinces her to visit her Aunt because she insists that paintings and other belongings have been stolen from her home and that it was damaged when the Royal Air Force took it and used it as their headquarters during the war. While there investigating these allegations not one but two dead bodies surface.
Is this a new mystery, or is it connected to the one they are working on? Who is the murderer, the butler, the groundskeeper, the maid, her blind cousin, or someone else. Will they solve the mystery before they are killed themselves?
With a bit of Romance, ancient Roman ruins, a bit of espionage and some good detective work they set out to solve the mystery and catch the killer.
This was a nice distraction from some heavier reading material and I really enjoyed it. I had a good time trying to figure out the ending and who the killer was. I did not guess until the end.
The book was well written, kept you in suspense until the end and I loved the descriptions of the surroundings and the clothing worn during that post war period. I also liked the characters and how they interacted within the story.
I would recommend this book.
Thanks to Anna Lee Huber, Kensington Books , and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy in return for an honest review.
Verity’s story continues as she tries to solve mysteries in post WWI England. This is a wonderfully crafted book filled with amazing characters, a great complex mystery, suspense and romance. Huber immerses you in the era and allows you to visualize what life might have been like. The mystery is full of interesting and subtle clues, surprising twists, numerous viable suspects, danger and intrigue. The heroine is adventurous, intelligent and engaging. The book highlights the social discord of the times and the role intelligence agencies had during the war and after. I especially liked that the characters were complex, complete with strengths and weaknesses. I look forward to reading more in this series.
I am so enjoying this series. It is chronicling so many post Great War issues and giving the reader insight into the generation that experienced this tragedy. Such an intriguing time.
Verity, who works undercover with the Secret Service, teams up with her husband (who she thought was killed but was not), to work on a case. She soon is tasked with helping her Aunt Ernestine with issues at Ardmore after soldiers were stationed there. Missing treasures, a murder, a sinister villain, so much to take in! The pace gets more frantic as the story evolves. The continuing thread about Lord Ardmore is perfect.
I love the books that Ms. Huber writes. She does her homework about the time period and you can tell she’s taken lots of time to work out the mystery, leading all of her readers on a satisfying adventure!
This is book 4 in the series and although it can be read as a standalone, I’d suggest reading the series in order.
The war is over but the danger is not past. Verity Kent’s clandestine wartime service has left her vulnerable. To protect herself, her family, and friends, Verity has contacted C, her wartime boss. This act appears to create even more problems. A Pretty Deceit follows a very twisted path as Verity, Sidney, and friends race to find the evidence needed to stop a powerful villain who is always steps ahead of them.
A Pretty Deceit by Anna Lee Huber is the third in the Verity Kent mystery series. Verity lived through World War I as a spy behind the German lines. She was nearly killed on more than one occasion and lost her husband, who after fifteen months turned up alive after all. It was a terrible time but now she and Sidney have the lives they were meant to have: wealthy, party-going socialites. Of course, there is the whole solving crime thing as well. In this book they are working on two things: the elusive Lord Ardmore and the misbegotten deeds he is up to as well as the murder of Mr. Green, her aunt’s man-of-all-work. Her aunt’s home was requisitioned during the war to house officers and pilots for the nearby airfield and to say they abused the place is putting it mildly. He aunt calls for assistance; assistance she doesn’t really need as much as she needs the attention. Verity and Sidney get pulled into it all and eventually discover it is all related.
My first thought is that this book could have used some editing. I felt like it was too long. What I would have left out, I’m not sure. Many emotions rose to the top in the tome. PTSD is not only for soldiers, but also for spies and for those left at home. It manifests in many ways, as Verity was to learn during this time. She was also to learn what a small country England was and how easy it was to come across people one never expected to see again. Verity is a strong and intelligent character. She is beautiful and somewhat patient, but extremely curious about things, both her business and not. She is totally in love with her husband and happy in her life. What could be left wanting? Sidney is a good wingman and partner, having his own issues with which to deal. This is a charming Post-WWI, husband and wife mystery series. I recommend it.
I was invited to read a free ARC of A Pretty Deceit by Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #aprettydeceit
This is the 4th book featuring Verity Kent and the series is best read in order. Verity was a spy in WWI, thought that her husband, Sydney, was killed in action and carried on her life as a widow. That all makes for some entanglements in this mystery. Because of her experiences, she is asked to go to her aunt’s stately home and investigate art thefts and a missing servant and a death. While she and Sydney are sorting that out, they realize that something more sinister is needing to be dealt with – finding Lord Ardmore and a coded message might make that happen. As they hunt for answers to the happenings on the estate, are they the hunted when it comes to Lord Ardmore? I’ll say no more for fear of spoilers.
Historical mysteries are one of my favorite genres and this series is in the top ten. It’s full of depth, well developed real people and puzzles that keep me engaged and guessing wrong My thanks to the publisher Kensington and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
Post-WWI Spy Intrigue
This is a very good mystery. The series has an overall arc storyline of looking for a certain bad-guy mastermind. Each book has a mystery to be solved. This book takes place late in the year following the armistice. To say more would spoil some of the plot. This story also deals with some of the war’s fallout of men and women suffering from the mental and physical residual from the war. This is such a good book. I love the way the author presents things and really brings the story to life. I plan on reading all of this series. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.
I love the depth I find in Anna Lee Huber’s stories. She has proven herself a master at jumping from different historical settings. I found the fourth book in the series to be delightful. Verity and her husband are called to a relative’s estate to help solve the unexplained disappearance of some treasured family objects as well as that of a missing maid. Is there a connection between these and the mysterious death of a local man? With some predictable and some unpredictable plot twists, I found this to be an enjoyable read. I was most drawn to Huber’s elegant prose and the graceful focus on different characters’ emotional scars from WWI, delving into how these continued to haunt them.
Within this story, we have a mystery that is solved witting the pages of this novel, but we also have another plot that is carried from past novels and is foreshadowed to continue in upcoming books. Readers will find that this can be read as a standalone, but will appreciate the overall plot and character arcs if the books within the series are read in order.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author/publisher and was not required to write a review. All opinions expressed are my own.
A Pretty Deceit is the fourth book in Anna Lee Huber’s Verity Kent series, which takes place shortly after The Great War. I read the previous book, Penny For Your Secrets, and it was marvelous. I was instantly a fan of Ms. Huber. I wasn’t lost reading that one, even though I hadn’t read the first two. I must admit, however, that I was a bit lost here, not having read those, because I believe I missed some plot points that would have helped in this story. In no way, though, did that hinder my enjoyment of this cracking good historical mystery!
Verity Kent, a former Secret Service Agent for England, and her veteran husband Sidney visit Verity’s aunt in Wiltshire at the behest of her father. During the war pilots were billeted at her estate, leaving damage. Expensive items were also missing, original paintings had been replaced with forgeries, and one of the maids has disappeared. Verity and Sidney investigate the strange goings-on…and then a body is discovered on the estate. As if that wasn’t enough, they are also pursuing shady Lord Ardmore, an old adversary and suspected traitor. Their friend Max’s father left coded messages that may be related to the truth of Lord Ardmore. Are the two cases in any way connected to each other? And more importantly, will Verity, Sidney and their friends survive?
This was a fun and exciting mystery that never slowed down. As previously stated, I was a bit confused, and that was with the Lord Ardmore storyline; it would have helped knowing that background. But the mystery at the aunt and blind cousin Reg’s estate did not rely on previous storylines. That mystery had me totally stumped! It’s Ms. Huber’s characters, however, that shine and draw me to these stories. Both Verity and Sidney deal with what we know now is PTSD. Also, they are still dealing with the aftershocks of when Verity discovered that Sidney wasn’t dead as reported. They are getting past that, despite there being two other men, Max and Alec, who appear in this story that Verity was drawn to when she thought she was widowed. Sidney is the love of her life, however, and I love their history and current relationship. I hope there are many more adventures and intrigues for this awesome couple!
I received an ARC of this book courtesy of the publisher and NetGalley. I received no compensation for my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are entirely my own.