Daughter of Deceit explores the different forms that female ambition can take and the price paid for achievement. The character of Desiree, a very successful musical-comedy actress, is the main vehicle for examining the issue. Desiree, the mother of the narrator, Noelle Tremaston, reaches the peak of her profession by her single-minded pursuit of the dream she had as a girl.

She sought to leave the constricted social and religious environment of her Cornish village at a young age. She is able to achieve her dream while maintaining her humanity; her ambition does not make her cruel or bitterly competitive. Desiree lives her life as she chooses; Noelle says of her mother, "She had not so much defied conventions as ignored them." She does not openly flout conventions but lives with discretion on the boundary between traditional values and immorality.

Despite bearing a child out of...