Barbara M. reviewed on + 147 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I won this book in a drawing 5/2019 and just read it this past month. I had never heard of the SOE or its work. I had gotten a little more than halfway through the book when I got to a part of the story that really angered me. From that point on, I couldn't wait to be done with the book. There are three main characters--Eleanor, who comes up with the idea of female agent and runs the program; Marie, a young (20s, I believe) mother, who is handpicked by Eleanor to become an agent, mainly because of Marie's ability to speak French like a native; and, Grace, also a 20s something widow living in NYC.
Marie has a five-year old daughter who is currently living with a relative outside London. Marie isn't sure she should take the job with SOE because of her daughter but ultimately does so, primarily because the pay is so much more than her current job. Marie struggles during training; Eleanor has doubts about Marie's abilities but ultimately sends her to France. In training, the women are told that in France they are only to speak French and are not to refer to one another by their real names yet when they were in France, the girls apparently spoke English and used one another's real names.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Marie met Julian (a/k/a "Vesper) in France shortly after she landed. He locked her in a foul-smelling shed and left her there overnight. The reason he did that was never revealed and seemed odd. In spite of this inauspicious beginning, Marie quickly fell for Julian. They had only been together a handful of times. Julian ended up going back to London and was supposed to return to France on a certain day. When Julian didn't, Will, a pilot and Julian's cousin, told Marie that she needed to go back to where she was staying, pack up everything, and leave. Did Marie do the prudent thing? Heavens no! Did she think of her daughter? No! Marie decided to stay and try to find Julian. That's when I became angry. I felt the author had taken the "cheap" way out by having Marie behave like a weak woman who was so besotted by a man (that she had only interacted with a few times) that she couldn't think rationally. It's insulting to women to draw the character that way. I think the story would have been much more interesting if Marie had packed up her stuff and made her way through France.
Grace was also an unsympathetic character. She ran into her husband's good friend Mark in NYC after not having seen him in at least a year and she spends the night with him at his hotel. Grace has a job as a secretary for an immigration attorney. Once she finds the suitcase with the photos, she ends up being late or not going to work all together and her employer, nice guy that he is, doesn't have a problem with that. END OF SPOILERS
Other reviewers (on Amazon) have noted the apparent shoddy historical research--TV in a bar in 1946, 50 state medallions in a building in 1946 when there were only 48 states at that time, and several other errors. I also found it rather unbelievable when the identity of the person who compromised the SOE was identified. The motive for doing so made no sense.
Marie has a five-year old daughter who is currently living with a relative outside London. Marie isn't sure she should take the job with SOE because of her daughter but ultimately does so, primarily because the pay is so much more than her current job. Marie struggles during training; Eleanor has doubts about Marie's abilities but ultimately sends her to France. In training, the women are told that in France they are only to speak French and are not to refer to one another by their real names yet when they were in France, the girls apparently spoke English and used one another's real names.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Marie met Julian (a/k/a "Vesper) in France shortly after she landed. He locked her in a foul-smelling shed and left her there overnight. The reason he did that was never revealed and seemed odd. In spite of this inauspicious beginning, Marie quickly fell for Julian. They had only been together a handful of times. Julian ended up going back to London and was supposed to return to France on a certain day. When Julian didn't, Will, a pilot and Julian's cousin, told Marie that she needed to go back to where she was staying, pack up everything, and leave. Did Marie do the prudent thing? Heavens no! Did she think of her daughter? No! Marie decided to stay and try to find Julian. That's when I became angry. I felt the author had taken the "cheap" way out by having Marie behave like a weak woman who was so besotted by a man (that she had only interacted with a few times) that she couldn't think rationally. It's insulting to women to draw the character that way. I think the story would have been much more interesting if Marie had packed up her stuff and made her way through France.
Grace was also an unsympathetic character. She ran into her husband's good friend Mark in NYC after not having seen him in at least a year and she spends the night with him at his hotel. Grace has a job as a secretary for an immigration attorney. Once she finds the suitcase with the photos, she ends up being late or not going to work all together and her employer, nice guy that he is, doesn't have a problem with that. END OF SPOILERS
Other reviewers (on Amazon) have noted the apparent shoddy historical research--TV in a bar in 1946, 50 state medallions in a building in 1946 when there were only 48 states at that time, and several other errors. I also found it rather unbelievable when the identity of the person who compromised the SOE was identified. The motive for doing so made no sense.
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