'A winner. The narrative is crisp, the characterisation revealing, the ending quite modern in its ambiguity.' The LadyTwo very different – yet physically identical – young ladies meet at a boarding school once attended by Jane Austen in Joan Aiken’s engrossing historical novel, Deception.Self-righteous Louisa wants to escape her grand family life in Northumberland and become a missionary in India. Imaginative and quiet Alvey has no family and only longs for peaceful independence to complete her novel.So when Louisa suggests swapping identities it seems like the perfect plan: Alvey will have a peaceful country manor in which to write her book and Louisa will be free to voyage across the globe. But when Alvey becomes a beloved and indispensible member of her extraordinary new family, how will they view the return of the horrible Louisa?Joan Aiken weaves a complicated plot of deception and identity, peopled with strong female characters, in this unique historical romance.
