One of the highest accolades that I can give a book is that I read it in an afternoon because this means it held my attention to the point that I shut the rest of the world out and simply lost myself to another time and place. I read The Deception of Harriet Fleet in an afternoon. It was gothic suspense in the tradition of Victoria Holt and Phyllis Whitney with a dash of modern feminism thrown in to contrast with the societal imprisonment of Victorian women.

I will have to warn that the book opens with the murder of a two-year-old, definitely not Holt or Whitney territory--this almost caused me not to read the book at all.However, the description was not graphic in the extreme and the action quickly moves 20 years forward in time and to our her heroine Harriet who is fleeing her abusive uncle to become a governess. However, the situation she is fleeing to may be just as dangerous as the one she left: gloomy mansion, mysterious and damaged aristocratic family, a job that is more warden than governess, hostile servants, and, of course, talk of ghosts.

Author Helen Scarlett does a good job of drawing the reader in while also indicting the inequities of the Victorian era in a fast-moving read that entertains. Verdict: a great rainy day read.

Full Disclosure--NetGalley and the publisher provided me with a digital ARC of this book. This is my honest review.

I really enjoyed this atmospheric work of historical fiction which deftly blends familiar elements of Victorian gothic novels - ghostly horrors in an isolated country house, a wealthy family harbouring terrible secrets, a murderous mystery and an amateur detective determined to uncover the truth – with a modern sensibility, to create an energetic page-turner.
The plot centres around Harriet, who as events unfold is revealed as both perpetrator and victim of the titular ‘deception’. A lonely ‘outsider in a hostile home’, Harriet applies her considerable curiosity and empathy to unravelling the truth about the tragedy that has blighted the Wainwright family, for whom she works as a governess, hoping in the process to expose a miscarriage of justice. However, she proves to be unprepared for the many shocks that are to come and soon finds herself in terrible danger.
I loved the darkly evocative descriptions of the novel’s haunting north-eastern setting. I found a pleasing crossover with my interest in historical true crime as well knowing echoes of favourite novels like Jane Eyre, The Turn of the Screw and Wuthering Heights. I also enjoyed the way Helen Scarlett subtly enables us to view the desperate plight of her female protagonists through modern eyes, showing the gothic terrors she describes as an extreme response to intolerable circumstances.

I find that hard to believe that this is Helen Scarlett's first novel. It reads like a work written by an accomplished and established author. She certainly knows how to write. The book is very atmospheric, with an underlying tension throughout - not one to read just before you go to sleep. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended.

I loved this book. It's a gothic tale written from the perspective of the 21st century - how frustrating to be an intelligent woman in the 19th century, with such limited opportunities and such a dependance on men. But this isn't pushed - the story is gripping, and the book is a real page turner. Harriet is fleeing from her uncle to take a post as a governess to the difficult Eleanor - in the inhospitable Teeside Hall, with the unwelcoming Wainwright family. There is an old murder to solve, and current secrets and mysteries aplenty, uncovered gradually but dramatically throughout. There's also romance, adventure and conflict. The setting is dark and spooky - there is a sense of foreboding which intensifies as you read on. A very good read.

A very enjoyable historical mystery. Loved the locations as the book is set in and around my home area of Eaglescliffe, Stockton and all around the banks of the River Tees. Nicely fast paced and pretty dramatic and thrilling.

I really enjoyed reading The Deception of Harriet Fleet and read it over a 24-hour period: it's very engaging, readable and full of interest. I'm ultimately not giving this a higher rating as the exposition was laid on quite thickly at times and the ending was far too rushed for my liking. But it's a different and enjoyable interpretation of the Gothic house mystery.

Complex and intricate story which dragged a little bit kept my interest enough to find out the whole story of Harriet Fleet.

This is a Historical Romance just as I like them. A hint of Jane Eyre, (although nothing can beat that book): a dark and dismal haunted house, a governess with a secret, a dashing young man and a family harbouring lies. And it’s also a intriguing, slow burning murder mystery.

Harriet Fleet is fleeing from Norfolk after the death of her father, to escape the greedy hands of her guardian, uncle Thomas. She takes a position under an assumed name at Teesbank Hall, the stately home of the Wainwright’s, to take care of Eleanor, the troubled 18 year old daughter.
Soon it becomes clear it is not so much a teaching position, as Eleanor already mastered more subjects than Harriet herself, but she is asked to spy on Eleanor who suffers from hysterical angry fits. A task Harriet unwillingly performs because she has no choice. The atmosphere in the house is depressing: the parents hate each other, the murder of their young son 20 years ago hangs as a dark shadow above them and the only light is Henry, the goodhearted son.

As I said, the story has a lot of Jane Eyre in it: not a mad woman in the attic, but other secrets and lies. Maybe because the story is told by a much older Harriet, who looks back on the events that the story seems a bit distant. Interesting is the way the constraints of women in the Victorian age are made shockingly clear by the author. A modern touch I really appreciated.
It lacks in some ways the passion of Brontë’s novel: Henry is no Rochester and Harriet no Jane, but the plot and mood kept my attention. So, the foundations are there. So much that I read it in one sitting until the wee hours.
I’m interested to know with what novel Helen Scarlett comes up with next.

Thank you Quercus Books and Netgalley for the ARC! I enjoyed it!

Harriet has taken a job as governess at the remote and foreboding Teesbank Hall in County Durham in the late nineteenth century because she needs to remain hidden from her uncle. She’s surprised to learn that the child she’s been hired to look after is actually an 18 year old girl. Eleanor is highly intelligent, but also very troubled and Harriet’s job is not to educate her but to watch over and contain her. Soon she finds herself caught up Eleanor’s fixation on uncovering the dark past of the Wainwright family and drawn into their treacherous past. I liked this book, it put me in mind of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart’s Gothic novels

Poor Harriet,running away from her wicked uncle may well be running to something worse.. if the locals are right. A house of murder and hauntings,that nobody will go near.

What struck me most about this book is the amount of downtrodden women... there were toxic situations everywhere.
A toxic marriage,an employer with wandering hands,an overbearing family having you watched day and night...
Then thrown in there,the mystery of decades old murder to solve.
Enjoyable.