Another entertaining mystery/romance from Thompson. If you haven't read the first in the series, start with City of Lies.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This is the second book in a series, and the story here picks right up where the first book, City of Lies, ended. The mystery that the characters deal with here is completely new and separate from that they faced in the first book, and I suppose you could read this one without reading the first, but I think you would miss out on a lot of important background about the characters and their relationships. Besides: the previous book is a lot of fun, so go read that first!.

Ok, with that out of the way, let's look at City of Secrets. Elizabeth Miles is a con artist, but because of her relationship with upright lawyer Gideon, she seems to be reforming her ways. She is spending time with Gideon's New York society family, and befriends Priscilla Knight, a widow who is part of their circle of society friends. As she gets to know Priscilla, Elizabeth learns that the other woman's husbands (both of them!) died under strange circumstances, and somehow the widow and her daughters have been left penniless. With her grifter background, Elizabeth is understandably suspicious, but the situation gets even messier and nastier than she feared. Elizabeth wants to use her skills to help Priscilla, but Gideon would prefer to pursue legal avenues.

I really enjoyed the mystery here, and I liked seeing how Elizabeth and Gideon deal with the conflicts in their philosophies. The author does a great job providing historical detail to set the stage for the story, and the characters are very nicely realized. I would have liked to spend more time with Gideon's mother and Elizabeth's father in this book--I like those characters very much!

City of Secrets is the second in the Counterfeit Lady series by Victoria Thompson. I hadn't read the first book in the series but had no trouble catching on. I fully intend to read the first book, then probably reread this one.

Thompson has crafted a view of society in the 1920s where con artist, Elizabeth Miles, is trying to make her mark. She's just broken up with her fiance and is secretly engaged to Gideon Bates - a man she truly loves. Gideon's mother (Elizabeth met her in the first book during a suffragist demonstration) adores her and is helping to navigate the maze of society.. Elizabeth and the Bateses come to the aid of Priscilla Knight, a young widow with two small children who has found herself widowed again, and penniless.

Elizabeth must draw on her special skills to help Priscilla discover what happened to the money, how Priscilla found herself married to a second man, and what exactly is going on with the Pastor and his wife - all while following the etiquette guidelines set forth by Mrs. Edith B. Ordway in her tome The Etiquette of Today.

City of Secrets was a delightful read. The characters are very well-developed and the dialog is excellent and often really funny. Thompson manages to convey the societal strictures of the 20's as well as the freedom that is slowly approaching as women lobby furiously for the right to vote. There are so many characters, Jake and the Old Man, Daisy and Paster Honesdale, Elizabeth's grifter family. I don't want to give anything away, just read it! I can't wait for the next book in the series!!

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I had read the first book in this series and this one picked up not long after that one ended. I have to say, I enjoyed this book much more than the first one. I felt like there was an actual mystery being investigated and then it was a fun twist on the typical mystery series genre to have there be a con involved in order to get justice. Again, it made me feel grateful to be living as a woman now versus then with the liberties we enjoy. This is a series I plan to continue reading.

Elizabeth and Gideon are a mismatched couple. One raised outside the law, one a lawyer who believes in the law. On their second case they are trying to find justice for a friends who’s second husband has left her and her children penniless.
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