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knows an object’s entire history…
novel from Alyssa Richards, where an art appraiser has a gift for seeing the
history of an object with just a touch, tries to put her gifts and her troubled
past behind her. Fans are calling THE FINE ART OF DECEPTION: UNDOING
TIME, “enthralling” and “a new take on paranormal romance that
you just can’t put down!”
Synoposis:
Art
appraiser Adeline Montgomery just wants a normal life. One where she can ignore
the vicious ghosts who follow her. One where she’s
free from her “gift” of touching an object and seeing the owner’s
deepest secrets. And one where she can fall in love without having all of the
above get in the way.
when tall, dark, and dangerous gallery owner Blake Greenwood enters her life,
normal is the last thing she’s
feeling. The man has more secrets than the priceless art he sells, giving
Adeline’s quest for normal no chance. That, and he
may just hold the key to uncovering the truth behind her father’s
unexplained disappearance.
her paranormal gifts warning her to stay away, she feels an inexplicable,
captivating fascination for him, something that goes deeper than attraction.
There’s something between them that’s
older than time, and if she can learn to give him her trust, it may just save
her life.
lives in the South with her husband and two children. She recently published
her first paranormal romance book called The Fine Art of Deception: Undoing
Time and is currently working on the sequel.
Alyssa’s writing is influenced by her curiosity with ghosts and the
supernatural world. She writes daily and
believes that discipline and commitment to the craft are critical to be a
successful writer. Whenever she gets the
opportunity, Alyssa enjoys travel, spending time with her pups, and nurturing
her herb and rose garden.
with Alyssa:
The Fine Art of Deception is my first novel and it took about a year to write.
The day I decided to write fiction, I knew the main character would be about a psychic who was caught with one foot in the psychic world, and the other in the earth plane realm. I wanted to explore the challenges that someone like that has, such as the struggle to find their place in the world, and the difficulty in connecting with others — particularly with those who may feel exposed by being around someone who sees so much.
Too, there is the challenge of having such immediate intimacy with strangers, you know everyone, but no one really knows you.
Addie Montgomery, the main character in The Fine Art of Deception is just this character. I love her because she’s so flawed and vulnerable and honest about how her life just isn’t working. What you see is what you get with Addie, and it’s hard not to love that. When the story begins, she’s standing at the epicenter of the smithereens of her former life, trying to find a toehold to move forward in way where she doesn’t repeat past mistakes. She thinks she has her plan under control when in walks Mr Tall, Dark & Dangerous and nothing goes as planned. She’s the kind of character you root for.
Writing the backstory to the Isabella Gardner Museum heist — which is still the nation’s largest unsolved art crime — was my next focus. I’ve long been fascinated with art, art history and museums. I would move in to a museum if they would let me! I did quite a bit of research on this art crime. It’s a mystery that seems like it ought to have been solved long before now, but it stumps everyone.
I think the theft was most likely done by the mob – not a very well planned out heist on a soft target. When you look at how the thieves navigated the museum and what they took, it’s easy to think that they didn’t plan it out ahead of time and just took what looked interesting to them.
The Gardner Museum, was not unlike many others, in that they did not maintain solid security systems in an effort to cut costs. Terribly short sighted decision at an extraordinary cost.
Book 2 in The Fine Art of Deception series is due out in September!
on these social media sites, and I love to hear from readers!
Here goes another book that I devoured in just a few hours. The Fine
Art of Deception: Undoing Time by Alyssa Richards features an
interesting concept of Romance, Paranormal Elements and Crime.
felt like I was standing right in the middle of a Movie Set of
something between Pierce Brosnan’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” or Sean
Connery’s “Entrapment”. I was sucked into the story from the beginning
and I could not stop reading. It was such an interesting mix between the
paranormal – romance and crime elements that kept me reading and
wondering what might happen next.
really whished there were more books out there playing in such an
intriguing way with different elements instead of featuring only one.
liked the characters and the mystery around them also how the story
developed step by step and even if I already had my suspicions quite
early it was not disturbing my reading to find out I was right about
certain things.
annoyed me a little was that there were slightly too many “Brand names”
around. I understood that it was a way of letting the reader feel that
he was moving in the “high society “ but I am sure that this was obvious
from the beginning on due to all the art itself so for my personal
taste all those Brands added into the mix felt like product placement
(sorry)
writing style of the author is fluent and flawless but I think that
there were to many viewpoints added into the mix. It really confused me
as a reader that the story jumped between several persons PoV .
addition, I surly hope that the next book – that the author promised us
at the end of this one – will bring this story to an conclusion,
because even if this book has a “reasonable” ending for a romance novel,
the crime elements in this book demand a different ending.
I do not want to leave this review on a negative note as this book
really deserves better, therefore I would like to finish with my
recommendation of this book to all lovers of above the mentioned movies
as well as readers that are willing and open to try a little different
approach on crime novels.