Over the summer and continuing into fall, it seems, I have been listening to several audiobooks…grown-up stories! Yes, I know, I’ve always said that I don’t read adult fiction very often and here, I’ve spent the entire summer doing just that. Don’t worry, though, the books that I’ve been reading are very appropriate for teenagers, so there’s that. The author whose books I’ve been listening to is Kate Quinn. She writes history in such a way that you feel like you’ve been transported back in time and are living with the characters, experiencing what is happening on every page. Her stories are often based on real people and events. Her WWII books are the ones I first discovered. The thing I found fascinating is that most of her heroines are not American; what a refreshing perspective. Ms. Quinn is a consummate historian and researcher which is borne out in the intensity of her stories. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, give these a try, especially the audio version…the performer is amazing!

The Rose Code

The war is raging and the Allied forces need an edge to win against the Germans. That edge comes in the form of puzzlers, wordsmiths, and people who don’t think the way average people do. Three women, Osla, Mab, and Beth, were drawn into this world of words and codes and they became instrumental in the war of ciphers. Osla, a wealthy socialite who became entangled with the future Queen Consort, Prince Philip. Mab wanted nothing more than to marry a wealthy man and get her and her little sister out of the poverty-stricken home they shared with her mother. Beth was a young woman completely cowed by her mother. She was told what to wear, what to say, how to behave. When she met Osla and Mab, her world changed completely. Together, they decoded some of the most complex ciphers ever written which helped the Allied forces win World War II.

 

The Huntress

Three people from disparate backgrounds and countries draw closer as they find themselves on the trail of one of the most lethal Nazi assassins, The Huntress. Nina Markova,  honed into a clever, sharp, young woman by the frozen Russian wilderness that was her home. She escaped that life into the sky with the Night Witches, a regiment of all female bombers who dropped death on every Nazi unit they could find. Ian Graham is a war correspondent from England but became a Nazi hunter when his younger brother was murdered by The Huntress. She is the only target who has eluded him. Jordan McBride, a seventeen-year-old growing up in Boston just after the war ended, is working toward a career in photography. She lives with her father, a widower of several years, and owns an antique business. When her father brings home a quiet German woman, she is delighted until her photographic senses tell her something is not quite right.

Their stories unspool and weave together, inexorably, to the final confrontation where one will fall.

The Diamond Eye

Sniper. The very word evokes terror. During World War II, they were weapons used to pick off enemies one at a time. Mila Pavlichenko is a bookish young woman who dreams of being an historian, one day. She works quietly toward that goal while caring for her young son in the days just before the war began. In her spare time, she would go to the shooting range with her friends. She found she had a knack for it and took the master’s course and passed with flying colors. The day war began, she enlisted and was assigned to the sniper division. There, she honed herself into an efficient, expert markswoman who rarely missed which earned her the nickname, Lady Death. With her 300th kill, she is whisked away to America as a national hero in the hope that she can convince President Roosevelt to get America involved in the war against Hitler’s Nazis. She begins her tour in Washington, a gleaming city full of light and sound, the opposite of the quiet, solitary life of a sniper. As she makes the rounds of hand-shaking and schmoozing, she begins to relax a bit, feeling safe here, away from bullets and bombs. It’s not a feeling that lasts, though. Someone begins slipping threatening notes under her door and her sniper senses are on high alert. This new enemy is stealthy but Mila is clever, and they don’t call her Lady Death for nothing. All of her wits and skills help her survive in her sniper’s nests but will they be enough in this world of glittering diamonds and hidden agendas?