Daughter of Deceit's Noelle Tremaston is a peripatetic heroine. Her movement from happy ignorance to sad wisdom is organized around a series of places — London, Kent, Paris, and Cornwall — each of which plays a role in the stages of her life. They are contrasting worlds, urban and rural environments, each with its good and bad associations. They add interest by providing a variety of cultural and social backdrops for the action. Noelle's early life is in London, the exciting and glamorous home of Desiree's theatrical triumphs. In Noelle's mind, it is associated with her early happiness and with the bohemian lifestyle that she grew up with and is delighted to encounter later in Paris. After her mother's death, London is associated with that tragedy and the home she once knew passes into the hands of another. Her reclamation of this home several years later is a...