The Scent of Secrets is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014, 2015 by Thynker Ltd

Reading group guide copyright © 2015 by Penguin Random House LLC

Excerpt from The Pursuit of Pearls by Jane Thynne copyright © 2014, 2015 by Thynker Ltd

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

RANDOM HOUSE READER’S CIRCLE & Design is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Originally published in hardcover and in different form in the United Kingdom as A War of Flowers by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, London, in 2014.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Pursuit of Pearls (originally published in the United Kingdom as Faith and Beauty in a different form in 2014) by Jane Thynne. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Thynne, Jane.

The scent of secrets: a novel/Jane Thynne.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-553-39390-3

eBook ISBN 978-0-553-39391-0

1.  Actresses—Fiction. 2.  Intelligence officers—Great Britain—Fiction.

3.  Espionage—Great Britain—History—20th century—Fiction.

4.  Germany—History—1933–1945—Fiction.  I. Title.

PR6070.H96S34 2015

23'.914—dc23

2015011131

eBook ISBN 9780553393910

randomhousebooks.com

randomhousereaderscircle.com

Book design by Barbara M. Bachman, adapted for eBook

Cover design: Victoria Allen

Cover photograph: Frances McLaughlin-Gill/© Condé Nast Archive/Corbis

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