A Question of Trust: A Novel

by Penny Vincenzi

Overview

Penny Vincenzi, internationally bestselling author of No Angel, has dazzled readers with her intricately crafted novels for nearly twenty years. She unleashes her signature narrative prowess once more in her latest novel, A Question of Trust. In 1950s London, Tom Knelston is charismatic, charming, with a passion for politics and reform. He is a man with ambition—and someone to watch. His wife Alice, a former nurse, shares his ideals. It seems they are the perfect match. Then, out of the blue, Tom meets an old childhood acquaintance, the beautiful and unhappily married Diana Southcott, a fashion model. In many ways, she is everything Tom fights against, but she is also irresistible and so, flirting with danger, they embark on an affair that is potentially damaging to both. And when his child becomes ill, Tom is forced to make decisions about his principles, his career, his marriage, and, most of all, his love for his child.A Question of Trust is a vintage Penny Vincenzi novel: rich in characterization, life-changing decisions, love, desire, and conflict. “Seductively readable” (The Times), it is a luscious, page-turning read about a precarious situation—both utterly compelling and hugely rewarding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468316148
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	07/10/2018
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Penny Vincenzi has written seventeen bestselling novels, including No Angel, Something Dangerous, Into Temptation, Wicked Pleasures, Another Woman, Forbidden Places, Windfall, An Outrageous Affair, The Dilemma, Almost a Crime, and A Perfect Heritage. Before becoming a novelist, she worked at such magazines as Vogue, Tatler, and Cosmopolitan. She has four daughters, and divides her time between London and Gower, South Wales. Over seven million copies of her books have been sold worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

06/25/2018
The late Vincenzi (A Perfect Heritage) demonstrates her talent for weaving a dizzying cast of characters together into a historical epic that spans the middle decades of the 20th century. Born in England in the wake of WWI, Tom Knelston is a postmaster’s son whose intelligence and ambition help him rise to a position of prominence in the Labour Party following WWII. That position sustains him following the death of his wife in childbirth. Diana Southcott is born into a stifling life of privilege but leaves her husband to forge a modeling career. As Tom’s second marriage falters, he and Diana tumble into an affair that jeopardizes Tom’s family and his career. A secondary plot featuring Jillie, a promising obstetrician, and Ned, a gay pediatrician who fears for his professional prospects if he’s outed, is far more emotionally gripping, but the imbalance between their story and Tom’s leaves the work feeling off-kilter and unfulfilling. The story is solid, but each scene plays out like a snapshot, with plenty of color but no real depth. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

The hallmarks of a Vincenzi novel are all here: fabulous hotels, expensive champagne, and heart-wrenching angst hidden by a stiff upper lip. Old-fashioned and over-the-top in the best way, this can be recommended to readers who like the sagas of Danielle Steel and Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Booklist

2018-06-18
Vincenzi, who died in February, wrote blockbusters (A Perfect Heritage, 2015, etc.) focusing on Fleet Street journalists, desperate politicians, fashion mavens, and physicians, all of whom are represented in her last novel, which follows a group of characters from 1936 to 1955.As with much of Vincenzi's oeuvre, a populous cast is introduced at the beginning, mandating constant cross-checking of the indispensable Character List for the first 200 pages or so. Tom rises from a working-class background to become a solicitor and a candidate to be a Member of Parliament from the Labour Party. Top model Diana, whom true love has eluded, relieves the boredom of her marriage with fashion shoots, flings with photographers, and posh nightlife. Jillie, an obstetrician, and Ned, a pediatrician, are on the verge of marriage until Ned reveals that he's gay. Alice married Tom but has always felt overshadowed by his first wife, Laura, who not only saw him through World War II, but died giving birth to their stillborn child. Alice gave up her hard-won nursing career to have three children with Tom, but the strains of domestic life—Labour politicians don't hire nannies—take a toll. The behavior of the characters is often arbitrary: Tom, for example, appears to go from understanding husband to petty tyrant overnight. Diana can be gracious one minute, vindictive and conniving the next. Three main conflicts heighten the stakes. Diana and Tom find themselves helplessly in lust just as he is about to break into the political mainstream. The heroic Ned draws his superiors' ire by advocating for hospitalized children, risking dangerous publicity: If the press sniffs out his homosexuality, ruin and jail are guaranteed. Tom's advocacy for the new National Health Service is key to his politics but proves problematic for his family. Vincenzi's forte was delivering her doses of socio-economic realism with a large dollop of syrupy scandal.Vincenzi's vast readership, both in the U.K. and across the pond, will savor this last book.

Kirkus Reviews

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