Kim Taylor Blakemore
Kim Taylor Blakemore
Beware of Dangerous Women...
Beware of Dangerous Women...
THE DECEPTION
A sleight of hand. A trick up the sleeve. A call for the dead. It’s all part of the game in this twisty tale by the bestselling author of After Alice Fell.
New Hampshire, 1877. Maud Price was once a celebrated child medium, a true believer in lifting the veil between the living and the dead. Now penniless, her guiding spirits gone, the so-called “Maid of Light” is desperate to regain her reputation—but doing so means putting her faith in deceiving others.
Clementine Watkins, known in spiritualist circles for her bag of tricks and utmost discretion, creates the sort of theatrics that can fill Maud’s parlor again, and with each misdirection, Maud’s fame is restored. But her guilt is a heavy burden. And the ruse has become a risk. Others are plotting to expose the fraud, and Clem can’t allow anyone—even Maud—to jeopardize the fortune the hoax has made her.
When the deception hints at a possible murder, Maud realizes how dangerous a game she’s playing. But to return to the light from which she’s strayed, she must first survive the darkness created by Clem’s smoke and mirrors.
THE DECEPTION captures the fascinating world of 19th century mediums in this story of intrigue, deceit, and the otherworldly.
Historical fiction lovers will delight in the wonderfully captured details and the mystical elements at the center of this novel. A must read!
LYDIA KANG
Bestselling author of The Half-Life of Ruby Fielding
Suspense, romance, spirits, both living and dead – The Deception has it all. Taylor Blakemore has created the kind of spooky, riveting story readers of this genre will love.
The Deception delivers all the thrills and chills of a great séance, in a world where ghosts walk the earth, and the truly evil spirits may just be the ones in your own house.
CAROLE LAWRENCE
Author of Cleopatra's Dagger
Delightfully wry as it is unsettling, THE DECEPTION had me turning pages at a blistering pace. Blakemore bewitches with her shrewd, incisive look at the Spiritualist movement and two down-on-their-luck heroines bound in an unlikely partnership.
Teeming with intrigue, seething jealousies, and theatrical atmosphere. Absolutely impossible to put down!
PAULETTE KENNEDY
Author of Parting the Veil and The Witch of Tin Mountain
A sinuous tale of deception amidst the fascinating backdrop
of post-Civil War Spiritualism, The Deception seethes
from the very first sentence all the way through to its riveting conclusion.
Blakemore, a modern day Brontë, gleams in dark, moldering, claustrophobic places.
ROBERT GWALTNEY
Award winning author of The Cicada Tree
With a magician’s brilliant sleight of hand, Blakemore weaves
an intricate plot that is at once playful, moody, sinister, and deliciously clever.
THE DECEPTION crackles with intrigue and richly detailed historical atmosphere.
LIZA NASH TAYLOR
Author of In All Good Faith
Can the dead speak? Or are those who claim to hear them taking advantage of grieving families? THE DECEPTION, set amid the Spiritualist craze of the late 19th century, tackles such questions head on, with a propulsive, twisty story that kept me riveted until the very end. Blakemore creates complicated characters I can't help but root for--even when they do terrible things.
ELIZABETH BLACKWELL
author of Red Mistress and On a Cold Dark Sea
THE DECEPTION is a gloriously twisty slow burn of a gothic that dramatically reveals the heartbreaking clash between ethics and faith of the early Spiritualism movement.
Blakemore’s finely wrought prose and compelling characters illuminate a dark chapter of nineteenth-century history that'll bring shivers down your spine.
KRIS WALDHERR
author of The Lost History of Dreams and Unnatural Creatures: A Novel of the Frankenstein Women
A thrilling tale of two very different women—one clinging to the truth, the other trafficking in lies—whose lives become entwined in a dangerous game.
The Deception does what every historical novel attempts but rarely achieves: it immerses the reader into another world so thoroughly that the book becomes a time machine.
When we turn the last page, we emerge blinking into the glare of modern life with a deep insight into the past and a desire to improve the future."
CLARISSA HARWOOD
author of Impossible Saints and The Curse of Morton Abbey
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