Reformed conwoman Elizabeth Miles is getting ready for her wedding to Gideon Bates. They have tried to keep their engagement quiet, but it still shows up in the papers. That brings Oscar Thornton back into their lives, insisting that Elizabeth refund the money that he feels she owes him. Can they stop him once and for all? Meanwhile, Gideon has reconnected with one of his friends who has returned home from World War I. Logan Carsten had become engaged to a young woman before he left, but he fell in love with someone else while stationed in France. He intends to honor his engagement, but then, he hears from this Frenchwoman asking for his help in coming in America. Elizabeth thinks something more is going on. Can she also help Logan?

If you haven’t read this series yet, I recommend you read it from the beginning. This book includes some call back to earlier adventures as well as a major spoiler for the previous book. All of that is wonderful for fans, however, as it allows the characters to grow in some great ways. I love Elizabeth, Gideon, and the rest of the regulars, so I enjoyed spending time with them again. Since this is more a caper than a traditional mystery, I enjoy watching the plot unfold in different ways, and it kept me engaged the entire time. I did have an issue with one part of the climax; if Elizabeth’s motives for her actions had been built into the story a bit more, I probably would have been okay with it. I also enjoyed the humor early in the book. Once again, author Victoria Thompson has written a book that pulled me in and only let me go when I reached the final page.

A 1919 Wedding and a Con

It’s 1919 and the war is over. Gideon’s friend, Captain Logan Carstens, is back from France. He’s engaged to Rosemary, a society beauty, and it should be a happy time, but Logan fell in love with Noelle, a French girl. He won’t dishonor Rosemary by breaking the engagement, but he’s miserable pining for Noelle.

On a happier note, Elizabeth and Gideon are planning their wedding. This is difficult for Elizabeth. She’s not a society girl and much as she loves Gideon planning a wedding is proving a burden. It’s especially difficult because the engagement can’t be announced. Elizabeth is afraid the thug Ocsar Thornton, who she had conned and who believed her dead, will find her and try to exact revenge.

This is the fourth book in the series that continues the exploits of Elizabeth and Gideon. At first they seemed an ill-matched couple. She’s the daughter of a successful conman. He’s a lawyer who won’t lie. During the series they have come to respect each other’s background. Elizabeth is trying to reform her desire to perform a con in a good cause. Gideon is learning that justice is far from black and white.

The book is peopled with a wonderful set of characters from Elizabeth’s family to Logan Carstens, the reluctant bridegroom, and his somewhat vicious society fiancee. The cons are great fun. You can’t help rooting for the schemes to succeed.

The author has done a considerable amount of research to bring the period to life not just in the descriptions of the background but in the manners of the characters. If you enjoy historical fiction. This is a good one.

I received this book from NetGalley for this review

City of Schemes is a historical mystery set in post-WW1 New York. It is the 4th in the Counterfeit Lady series. World War One is over and Elizabeth is planning her wedding. Her time and attention is divided by friends who need help and a dangerous man from her past threatening her future. The story is told in the third person with Elizabeth being the primary point of view. There was a nice pace to the story; it didn't drag. The plot development was solid. Enough time was spent in exposition and rising action to draw you into the story and the climax was exciting. I also liked that the author spent a little time on the denouement - it was a nice to see after the action in the story. This series has interesting characters, especially Elizabeth. Having a main character in a historical mystery series being a woman con artist is brilliant. By this fourth book in the series, Elizabeth is trying to figure out how to be honest and fit into respectable society while also using her skills/gifts in an honest way to help others. I really like the character of Elizabeth.

City of Schemes (and the whole Counterfeit Lady series) is a different kind of historical mystery. I really enjoyed seeing how the various cons played out.. I hope there is more to come.

City of Schemes is the fourth installment in author Victoria Thompson's Counterfeit Lady series. It has been two months since World War I ended, Elizabeth Miles and Gideon Bates are preparing for their wedding. Thanks to the War ending before Gideon could be shipped overseas and likely not returning, plans are now going full speed ahead with the invitations, the place for the wedding, the guests who will be invited, the dress, etc. Then comes the revelation that Gideon's friend Logan Carstens is not as happy to return home as Gideon expected.

Despite the terrible ravages of the war, Logan, who is betrothed to Rosemary Westerly, found his great love in a young French woman named Noelle. The other problem is that New York society is strict and closed off to outsiders. Families have been known to tear each other a part at the slightest hint of wrongdoing. One day, Logan receives a letter in which Noelle asks for money to help flee her home country. However, Elizabeth notices something suspicious in the content of this letter. Elizabeth realizes that this looks to be a grift called the Spanish Prisoner.

Elizabeth desires the most to verify the authenticity of the letter so that if the letter is true, Logan has a chance to be happy. Unfortunately, Oscar Thornton, (the mark from the con in book #1), comes back to retrieve money he believes he had lost to her in one of her so-called schemes after reading about her engagement in the society newspapers. In order to get rid of him, Elizabeth goes to her father, The Old Man, along with her brother Jake, in seeking help to finally put Thornton out of his misery. This con belongs to the Old Man and Jake exclusively which once again reminds me of the movie The Sting.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth has to deal with a betrayal by Logan’s alleged fiancé Rosemary Westerly who leaked her engagement to Gideon to the newspaper. One of the best things about this story is the authenticity of the setting. The author has done her due diligence and it shows every single time one of these books is released. Some authors may mail it in, or create their own world, Thompson puts fictional characters into historical settings and does a marvelous job of creating a wonderfully entertaining story. I love that Gideon has all but stepped back and allowed Elizabeth to do what she needs to do. I am overjoyed that readers will finally get to see the event of the year with Elizabeth and Gideon’s wedding and all the surprises that come with it. So much for a quiet family and close-friends-only wedding!

"City of Schemes" was a fun read. This book is actually the fourth book in the series, "A Counterfeit Lady Novel". I have not read the earlier books, but I enjoyed this one, so I plan to go back and read them. Elizabeth Miles is a semi-reformed con woman. She is also set to marry Gideon Bates, a successful lawyer from an old society New York family, and who is well acquainted with Elizabeth's less than pristine past. Unfortunately, her past comes back to haunt them when Rosemary, a society girl with a penchant for gossip, arranges for news of Gideon and Elizabeth's engagement to appear in the gossip sections of the New York papers. The announcement is seen by Oscar Thornton, who believes Elizabeth is dead. He wants his revenge, as she had foiled his attempts to swindle the U.S. Army during WWI, and especially he wants the money he lost. Thornton shows up at Gideon's office and demands that Elizabeth pay him $250,000, due in a month, or he will make sure New York society knows about her past, which will result in her and Gideon, as well as Gideon's family, being ostracized. Therefore, Elizabeth's family (who are also grifters) have to run an elaborate con to eliminate Thornton as an ongoing threat.

Elizabeth also takes action to protect a friend of Gideon who appears might be a victim of the classic con, the Spanish Prisoner. She also has the opportunity to run that con herself not once, but twice. Elizabeth Miles is a delightful character. The author does a wonderful job of making the schemes and cons of Elizabeth appear authentic, while also making Elizabeth appear sincere to the "marks." The plot flows well and it is fun to see what schemes Elizabeth and her family come up and how the cons play out. The book is set shortly after WWI and the author makes good use of historical events, including US soldiers coming home with French war brides, the ongoing prejudice against Germans and German-Americans, and new fear of the Bolsheviks.

I would definitely recommend this book. As I noted above, I plan to read the earlier books in the series to find out what adventures Elizabeth got up to previously (including the full backstory of her past encounter with Oscar Thornton). There are numerous references to past events, and I am sure that having read the prior books would have provided greater insight into some of the characters and events, but "City of Schemes" stands on its own.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

The fourth book in Victoria Thompson’s excellent Counterfeit Lady series is an utter page-turner! There isn’t a single wasted moment in this terrific, twisting tale as our intrepid heroine Elizabeth Miles seeks to not only preserve herself and her fiance Gideon Bates from a threat from their past, but also to prevent a con from being run on one of Gideon’s best friends.

The Great War is over and Captain Logan Carstens has recently returned from France, still harboring feelings for Noelle, the schoolteacher in whose parents’ house he was billeted. Unfortunately, he became engaged to childhood friend Rosemary Westerly before being shipped out, though honestly doesn’t remember exactly how that happened. Still, as a man of honor and a member of New York City’s Four Hundred, the most elite members of society, he can hardly humiliate fellow socialite Rosemary by throwing her over. So he’s fully prepared to suffer in silence till he receives a letter from Noelle begging for a large sum of money to help her flee France for America.

As Gideon is both his friend and lawyer, Logan goes to him to ask for help withdrawing the amount from his trust fund. Gideon doesn’t need to be engaged to a con artist to know that something doesn’t seem right with Noelle’s request. He asks Logan whether they can bring Elizabeth in for a consultation which, of course, thrills Elizabeth no end. She confirms Gideon’s suspicions but, upon seeing how adamant Logan is in not wanting to refuse the woman he loves just in case there’s the tiniest chance she really is the letter writer, thinks up a plan to figure out what’s really going on with Noelle and who the letter writer might actually be. A small part of her is spurred on by the fact that she’s recently met Rosemary, who is exactly as awful as her best friend, socialite and scholar Anna Vanderslice, had warned her. Worse, Rosemary’s interfering ways have likely brought Elizabeth and Gideon back to the attention of Oscar Thornton, the vicious thug whose thirst for revenge was only extinguished when he thought Elizabeth dead. Now Oscar is in New York City once more, looking for the money Elizabeth conned him out of and threatening to expose her if she doesn’t find a way to pay him off.

Elizabeth is far more alarmed at this prospect than Gideon is. While they and their close circle of family and friends know that Elizabeth’s grifting was almost always done at the expense of rich evildoers and in pursuit of the justice so little afforded to women of the era, being publicly known as a former con artist is hardly respectable, and especially not for a lady about to enter high society by virtue of marriage. Gideon tries to reassure her:

QUOTE
“Whose opinion could possibly matter more than mine?” he challenged, feeling very virtuous.

“Everyone’s, I’m afraid. What happens when we are snubbed by all your friends? What happens when your clients no longer trust you because you’re married to a woman who steals for a living?”

“But you don’t--”

“Mr. Devoss would regret it very much, but he would have no choice but to let you go. You know it’s true. And your poor mother wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without being laughed at and--”

“Elizabeth, stop. Not all my friends would snub me, and I’d simply find other clients and--”

“Would you? Are you sure? New York is a big city, but New York society is a small town where everyone knows everyone else. How could some of your friends support you without being snubbed themselves?”
END QUOTE

If Elizabeth is going to face social disaster, then she’s definitely not going to do it at the hands of a war privateer and murderer, now turned blackmailer. But she also has no intention of paying Oscar the quarter of a million dollars he’s demanding, even if she had that kind of money to begin with. The odd case of Noelle’s letter gives her an idea for hopefully getting Oscar out of their hair for good. No, not by killing him off: as Elizabeth’s father and mentor would say, murder is far too messy. But there are other, if more complicated, ways to discredit a blackmailer, and Elizabeth is definitely up for the challenge.

I always appreciate a good heist novel, as Elizabeth here both foils and assists in running separate variations on a classic con. The plotting is whip smart, and the characterizations and settings written with great attention to both heart and detail. Ms Thompson writes vividly and with a wry humor of how things were both different and very much the same only a hundred years ago in New York City, as in this scene where Rosemary joins Elizabeth and Anna for lunch:

QUOTE
“I feel so strange coming into a restaurant unescorted,” Rosemary marveled when she had made her way over. Until the war, few respectable eateries would seat women who did not have a male escort, and the few who did restricted them to ladies-only dining areas.

“But isn’t it nice to be able to dine out with a friend without dragging along a man who doesn’t want to be there?” Anna said.

“I suppose.” Rosemary didn’t look convinced. Perhaps she thought a male escort was an essential accessory, like a hat and gloves.
END QUOTE

I devoured this book in a single day, completely losing myself in the adventures of Elizabeth and her friends and frenemies in early 20th century America. I really need to start reading Ms Thompson’s other mystery novels to fill the Counterfeit-Lady-shaped hole in my heart while waiting between books. This is by far one of the best historical mystery series I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying, and I’m always impatient to read more!

This story has left me with a genuine smile. World War I has just ended, Elizabeth and Gideon are excited to prepare for their wedding. The plans seem endless, the invitations, the place, everything must be perfect. Captain Archie Carstens is the son and heir to a fortune. He is not as happy to return home as Gideon expected. Despite the terrible ravages of the war, Archie found his great love. Gideon's love is a beautiful French young woman named Noelle. Archie wants to propose to her and bring her to the United States. One day, Archie receives a letter in which Noelle asks for money to help Noelle flee her home country. However, Elizabeth notices something suspicious in the content of this letter. Elizabeth desires the most to verify the authenticity of the letter. This way, Archie has a chance to be happy. I loved this story, especially since Elizabeth is a genius, capable of solving the most difficult mysteries. I like Gideon teaming up with her, but he also gives her the freedom to do what she has to do. This book made me feel intrigued by Archie and Noelle's situation. However, Europe was recently healing from a devastating war. I know this book is part of a series I want to be able to read the rest. I thank NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to Berkeley publishing group and NetGalley for the opportunity to give my unbiased review of this novel. In the fourth installment of this series, we see Elizabeth Miles using her wiles and those of her family to solve several immediate problems. She and her honest, upright fiancé Gideon are about to be married, but a ruthless man who was a victim of her con from the first book in the series returns intent on vengeance. In addition, Gideon‘s friend has returned from World War I a changed man with an ethical and moral conundrum which presents an opportunity for Elizabeth’s family to pull the perfect con. This was a fun read and watching the comeuppance of the evildoers was very satisfying. The discrepancies between men’s and women’s reputations in New York society were nicely examined.

This author is new to me so I was delighted to discover her through Net Galley, I really enjoyed this book and plan to read the others in this series. Thank you for the opportunity to discover her,

This is such a fun series and I love the character of Elizabeth. This was a cleverly crafted plot and the con that The Old Man dreams up is ingenious. There is much more to the story and it is historical fiction at it’s best.
Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this fun, entertaining story. The characters are so engaging and I liked the era. Elizabeth is planning her wedding, but an old nemesis pops up and needs to be taken care of. She doesn't run a con anymore, so she has to call for help. Then a friend of Gideon's needs help and Elizabeth needs to interfere just a little bit. Elizabeth and Gideon's future depends on taking care of this problem once and for all. Will they make it to their wedding? Will they be shunned by society?

Elizabeth Miles, a former con artist, is preparing for her wedding to Gideon Bates, attorney and a member of elite New York society. When a menacing shadow from Elizabeth's past threatens to destroy the life she and Gideon want to built together, she must decide what to do about her nemesis.
This is my first Counterfeit Lady Novel, and I am in love! I appreciate that the heroine has a past and is trying to balance her former and new lives.
Victoria Thompson makes the story flow easily from one chapter to the next. The novel also includes a historically accurate look at life in New York society. Throw in a wartime bride and several cons, and you have a book that's entertaining and interesting. I would really like to read the first three books in the series!

This series continues to be really enjoyable, and in this fourth book, Elizabeth and Gideon have to deal with some rude interruptions and challenges as they are planning for their wedding. The cons that are being run in this story are often humorous, and Elizabeth's way of using her knowledge of cons and schemes to really help those in their circle is so clever and interesting to read. Combined with the look into post-WWI New York City society, this makes for another great book in this series.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Company and Net Galley for the chance to read and review this book. I have read all of the Gaslight Mystery books, and enjoyed them so much! This is my first book in this series by Victoria Thompson. It was a nice change. I liked the mystery, the main characters and the cons that were taking place in this story. I plan to check out the other books in this series!

I am a big fan of Victoria Thompson's Gaslight series but had not read any of the City of books prior to this one. I enjoyed City of Schemes very much, Elizabeth Miles is a fascinating character and Gideon Bates is a wonderful counterpart to her unconventionality. The secondary characters are interesting and the family dynamic makes for an interesting subplot. I will definitely be checking out the first two books in the series and look forward to the next one!

"City of Schemes" is a historical suspense/mystery set in early 1919 in New York City. This is the fourth book in the series. You don't need to read the previous books to understand this one, and this book didn't spoil the previous novels. The historical details were woven into the story to create a sense of the specific time and place as well as bring the story alive.

Elizabeth is a reformed con artist engaged to marry Gideon, an honorable lawyer who refuses to lie. A man she helped con in the past tries to blackmail Elizabeth to get his money back. Gideon realizes that someone might be conning a good friend, so he asks for Elizabeth's advice. And Elizabeth wants to do something about the manipulative, self-centered woman responsible for endangering Elizabeth and making Gideon's friend miserable. So we have three cons going on, and it was very entertaining and humorous to see each of the cons being pulled off. And when things go wrong, just how will they pull everything off? Well-written, funny, wonderful story. There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I'd highly recommend this entertaining historical novel.

If I could give a book series at 10/10, this series would definitely get it. Full of suffragette history and strong women, this series goes far in providing strong women characters. The men of the book also provide agency to the women, and it's so refreshing to read. Victoria Thompson is QUEEN of the historical mysteries, and I will read all of them.

The Counterfeit Lady historical mystery series by Victoria Thompson is such a fun story. This fourth in series finds our plucky heroine preparing for her quiet family and close-friends-only wedding. If only her society "friend", Rosemary Westerly, had not been so eager to leak the upcoming nuptials to the society page reporters, then perhaps our plucky protagonist, Elizabeth Miles, could have continued to evade the wrath of Oscar Thornton (the mark from the con in book #1). Meanwhile, fiancé Gideon's friend, Army Captain Logan Carsten, betrothed to Rosemary and still pining for his WWI French girlfriend, Noelle, receives a letter via his sergeant. It is presumably from Noelle asking for financial assistance and passage from France to America. Logan, being duty bound, would never break off the engagement with Rosemary to pursue a further relationship with Noelle and Noelle states that she's aware of that. At any rate, there are cons a-plenty as Elizabeth's family gets in on the action. Ms. Thompson has done her research and added historical elements of the day, which are spot on. She even provides a few notes regarding the historical record at the end of the book. It's an action-packed story with never a dull moment.

If historical fiction with a high-spirited, plucky and courageous female protagonist at its center appeals, then this is definitely a series you won't want to miss. As of this writing, publication date is January 5, 2021

I am grateful to Penguin Random House LLC for having provided a complimentary uncorrected e-book file of this book through NetGalley. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

Why haven't I discovered this series sooner!? A refreshing take on historical cozy mystery that made me buy the first three books (this is book four) because I wanted to know how Lizzie and Gideon met. This story was a great puzzle to solve and with a lot of players in the mix, it was fun to try and keep up with Lizzie, Anna, and the Old Man. I highly recommend!

This is the first book I have read in the Counterfeit Lady series and the author did a great job of weaving in the back story from the previous book, and firmly establishing the relationships between each character. The story and plot of this book was refreshing and new to me. For some reason, I was expecting this book to be a murder mystery, but instead the main character is a con artist, and a woman, and it is set in New York City right after WWI, which is one of my favorite eras. Elizabeth Miles, the main character, has been a con artist most of her life because of her father, whom she calls "The Old Man." In this book, she has found the love of her life and is getting married to Gideon Bates. Unfortunately, Oscar Thornton, a man from Elizabeth's dark past, comes back to retrieve money he believes he had lost to her in one of her so-called schemes. In order to get rid of him once and forever, Elizabeth goes to her father, The Old Man, in seek of help, and the con her father cooks up is one that will leave Thornton down and out for good. Thompson did her research well while writing this story and scheming up the plot. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the "Spanish Prisoner" and how many cons, back in the day before the internet, were easily done, especially to those who craved money and power.