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An Impossible Impostor (A Veronica Speedwell…
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An Impossible Impostor (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) (edició 2022)

de Deanna Raybourn (Autor)

Sèrie: Veronica Speedwell (7)

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24014110,997 (3.94)14
Fiction. Mystery. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:While investigating a man claiming to be the long-lost heir to a noble family, Veronica Speedwell gets the surprise of her life in this new adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Awardâ??nominated author Deanna Raybourn.
London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau Stoker are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before.
 
But now a man matching Jonathanâ??s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family's most valuable possessionsâ??a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels? It's a delicate situation, and Veronica is Sir Hugo's only hope.
 
Veronica and Stoker agree to go to Hathaway Hall to covertly investigate the mysterious amnesiac. Veronica is soon shocked to find herself face-to-face with a ghost from her past. To help Sir Hugo discover the truth, she must open doors to her own history that she long believed to be shut
… (més)
Membre:SarahHo
Títol:An Impossible Impostor (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery)
Autors:Deanna Raybourn (Autor)
Informació:Berkley (2022), 336 pages
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An Impossible Impostor de Deanna Raybourn

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Es mostren 1-5 de 14 (següent | mostra-les totes)
An Impossible Imposter
4 Stars

Veronica's past comes back to haunt her when she is asked by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch, to confirm the identity of a man claiming to be a lost heir, Jonathan Hathaway, who was allegedly killed during the eruption of Krakatoa.

This installment diverges somewhat from the previous books in that the mystery revolves around someone living rather than dead. While this is a nice change of pace, it leads to a slower buildup of suspense. Nevertheless, the shift in focus from Jonathan Hathaway's identity to the theft of the Eye of the Dawn. is a solid twist.

The nature of the mystery also has an effect on Veronica and Stoker's relationship due to the revelations concerning Veronica's past. The effects are both positive and negative. On the one hand, they introduce a new element of tension to the romance, but on the other, the lack of communication and keeping secrets trope are very irritating. Moreover, some of Veronica's actions and the excuses she makes for Harry are out of character for her.

Although the specific investigation is resolved, the book ends on a minor cliffhanger, and now I will have to wait for the next book *sigh*. ( )
  Lauren2013 | May 5, 2023 |
Veronica Speedwell, lepidopterist, and her lover, natural historian Stoker (Revelstoke Templeton-Vane, who avoids that name as much as possible), get a personal request from the head of Special Branch, Sir Hugo Montgomerie. The eldest son and heir of the Hathaway family was lost six years ago in the eruption of Krakatoa. With his death, the younger son, Charles, became the heir, and not long after, their father died. This left the only daughter, Sir Hugo's goddaughter, Euphemia, unhappily under the authority of Charles and his wife, Mary.

But now a stranger has appeared at Hathaway Hall, injured and ill, claiming no memory, but carrying documents identifying him as the missing and presumed dead Jonathan Hathaway. He fits the description, and no one has seen him in six years, during which he has, if he is Jonathan, been through a major disaster and traumatic experiences. Is he Jonathan Hathaway, or is he an imposter?

Sir Hugo knows that Veronica knew Jonathan Hathaway and had traveled with him. She's a logical person to weigh in on whether the new arrival is really Jonathan Hathaway, or an imposter, because she's the person available who last saw him most recently, at the time of the Krakatoa eruption. And Jonathan, Charles, and Euphemia's grandfather, Sir Jeffrey Hathaway, had built a large collection taxidermied rare and exotic animals--and one of them is a thylacine. It's now extinct, but at the time of this story they were merely almost extinct, and greatly prized by those interested in rare animals. Because Veronica and Stoker are employed by the Earl of Rosemorran to catalog the animals for the natural history museum he intends to create, they can visit under the cover of evaluating for Rosemorran the Hathaway collection that Charles and his wife, Mary, regard as trash and want to get rid of, as part of their "modernization" of the Hall.

So off they go to Hathaway Hall, in the boggy moors.

They find a collection that hasn't been cared for in years, and a house being renovated with no regard for the value of the older decorations. The youngest sibling, Euphemia, a favorite of their grandfather, who has a passion for astronomy and who has been using the astronomical equipment he left with great skill, and who wants to study astronomy, has been reduced to Mary's unpaid servant. She will not be allowed to study astronomy, because it would be unladylike. Charles and Mary's three young children are running while and certainly not learning the virtues of kindness and consideration.

And they meet both Lady Hathaway, widow of Sir Jeffrey, her Indian servant Anjali, who is Euphemia's only friend in this household, and Jonathan Hathaway, or the man being called Jonathan Hathaway.

Veronica does recognize him. For complicated personal reasons, she doesn't want to say so, and identify him.

Lady Hathaway is convinced he's her long-lost grandson, and dotes on him. When she takes out one the most valuable of the Hathaway jewels, a diamond acquired under unclear circumstances during Sir Jeffrey's long service in India, and promises it to her "grandson," trouble truly begins to erupt.

A strange apparition, a cloaked figure accompanied by a blue-white light, tries to break into the summer house. Veronica sees it and pursues it till it goes out onto the moor, where Veronica has the sense not to continue in the dark.

The diamond Lady Hathaway promised "Jonathan Hathaway" is stolen, and "Jonathan Hathaway" disappears. There's a major clash between Euphemia and Charles over the astronomical equipment being sold off. Stoker becomes aware that there's something very odd between Veronica and "Jonathan Hathaway," and Veronica is keeping something important from him. It's the start of a real and potentially permanent rupture between them.

With the theft of the diamond, and the clash in the family, Stoker and Veronica head back to London.

It's in London that they discover that it probably wasn't "Jonathan Hathaway" who stole the diamond, because someone is coming after them in the belief that they have it.

There's a break-in at the Belvidere, that will house the museum if it ever opens, more questions about who "Jonathan Hathaway" is and a real rupture between Veronica and Stoker. And then the real villains catch up with them, and it's not just their personal conflict they have to deal with.

Despite much of it taking place in a country house, this is a rough and dangerous adventure for Veronica and Stoker. This one, along with the rest of the series, is realistic about what women could and couldn't do in late Victorian England, which is in different ways both more and less than people often assume. We continue to see the continuing characters develop, and the secondary characters are also good.

It's a lot of fun.

(Personal rant. The thylacine is, or rather was, Australia's largest carnivorous marsupial. It's commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, which is a stupid name for it, or as the Tasmanian wolf, which is a little better. Being marsupials, they were not either canids or felids, but they at least looked like large dogs in general body shape. The "tiger" appellation comes from the stripes on their hindquarters, which I've always thought was kind of pathetic. We don't call zebras "African tigers," or "tiger horses," and they're at least placental mammals with stripes all over. Yes, I'm being cantankerous.)

I bought this audiobook. ( )
  LisCarey | Jan 18, 2023 |
I think is the weakest installment of the Veronica Speedwell books yet. Part of that comes from figuring out within the opening chapters of the book that Jonathan was really Harry and that Veronica was romantically-involved with him at one point in time. Another part of it that Veronica simply wasn't honest with Stoker about pretty much anything. And that ending? No one really enjoyed that, did they?

Mostly though, I'm growing weary of what feels like the same-old-thing. I've read nearly all of Deanna Raybourn's books and I do really enjoy them (for the most part.) Some of these last few Veronica books have felt like the later Lady Julia Grey books though, and I worry that they're going to fizzle out in a similar manner. I sincerely hope that the next book(s) have a new sense of life to them and that the essence of surprise and excitement that was present in the first few books reappears. ( )
  bookwyrmqueen | Jan 5, 2023 |
An Impossible Impostor is the next entry in the Veronica Speedwell books, and I have to say, I was quite happy to say it was an improvement from the previous two instalments in this series. Maybe it had something to do with the setting as I tend to be a sucker for anything that has a Gothic feel to it, and this definitely had that in spades for the first half of the novel, but I also liked the tension between the two main characters as they navigated some interesting information from Veronica's past that was revealed.

First of all, I hadn't been a fan of Veronica's character development in several of the previous books as someone with her character would be chaffing at domesticity and longing for more opportunities to explore, despite her relationship with Stoker. What I really liked about this book was the exploration of Veronica's feelings as she examined her relationship with Stoker and what that could possibly entail for her future. And I enjoyed every little nuance, every moment of resistance she had as I felt that was truer to her character. And when this big twist happened, which actually caught me off guard, I loved it as I thought, great, more complications for a relationship that should have some type of fire to it as their lives were so complicated. Naturally, it did have a too-pat ending for my liking as I think it would have been fun to see that complication explored a bit more in future books, but you can't have everything. But exploring Veronica's past was a good move on the author's past as I do think it really added to her character development, rounded her out a lot more, added depth to her character.

I did feel like the author sort of neglected Stoker in this story, made him seem...petulant, it's the only word I can think of. Although I did learn a lot about some creature called a thylacine?, the whole thing between Veronica and Stoker did feel forced, at times, and I wish the author had fleshed out their issues a bit more as their banter and dialogue is often fun to read, and you see how they appreciate each other's quirks, and that would have been a great way to add some depth to their relationship. However, in the end, I enjoy these two together and readers know these two are meant to be together.

The mystery is a bit slow, but I appreciated the setting, the drama, and the set-up, and the author didn't lose sight of the mystery in the midst of a secondary drama between Stoker and Veronica, which was nice. It did get a bit more complicated than I was expecting, but it was fun, and although I did think the ending was a bit pat, I enjoyed it.

Verdict
An Impossible Impostor was a lot of fun, and finally, we get to learn a bit more about Veronica's past. I thought the character development was really good and although I thought Stoker was more of a secondary character as the events focused on Veronica and how she handled the big reveal, it all worked out in the end. This book brought back the magic of the first few books, and I am happy to recommend this to anybody who is a Veronica Speedwell fan. If you are new to the series, while this could be read as a standalone, I don't recommend it as you will miss important information about the main characters and their relationship development. ( )
  StephanieBN | Jun 19, 2022 |
Well, that was a ride full of twists and turns, laced with a consistent dread on when the murder will occur. Loved spending time with Veronica and Stoker -- desperately frustrated with the drama drama drama of it all -- but I really appreciated how frustrated Veronica was with herself for not talking things out with Stoker. Loved the repatriation aspects, the fury over the plight of unmarried women of little funds, the ever growing collection of dogs. Great story, very enjoyable. ( )
  jennybeast | Apr 29, 2022 |
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Fiction. Mystery. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:While investigating a man claiming to be the long-lost heir to a noble family, Veronica Speedwell gets the surprise of her life in this new adventure from the New York Times bestselling and Edgar Awardâ??nominated author Deanna Raybourn.
London, 1889. Veronica Speedwell and her natural historian beau Stoker are summoned by Sir Hugo Montgomerie, head of Special Branch. He has a personal request on behalf of his goddaughter, Euphemia Hathaway. After years of traveling the world, her eldest brother, Jonathan, heir to Hathaway Hall, was believed to have been killed in the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa a few years before.
 
But now a man matching Jonathanâ??s description and carrying his possessions has arrived at Hathaway Hall with no memory of his identity or where he has been. Could this man truly be Jonathan, back from the dead? Or is he a devious impostor, determined to gain ownership over the family's most valuable possessionsâ??a legendary parure of priceless Rajasthani jewels? It's a delicate situation, and Veronica is Sir Hugo's only hope.
 
Veronica and Stoker agree to go to Hathaway Hall to covertly investigate the mysterious amnesiac. Veronica is soon shocked to find herself face-to-face with a ghost from her past. To help Sir Hugo discover the truth, she must open doors to her own history that she long believed to be shut

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