The Rose Code by Kate QuinnMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was provided an audio ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Having read and enjoyed Quinn's previous books, I jumped on the chance to read this early. If you enjoyed The Alice Network and The Huntress, I believe you will enjoy this as well. If you are a fan of WWII history this is a great one to pick up, it has a little bit of a mystery element and some romance as well.
This book will be out in print and audio on March 9, 2021. I highly recommend it. I'll be purchasing a copy of my own when it comes out.
The narration was excellent. Saskia Maarleveld did a wonderful job voicing each of the characters and making sure each of them had a distinct voice.
I did find this to be a bit slower paced than the previous books, but it still has that same sort of feel. It is completely unrelated to the other books so you can read it without having read either of the books I mentioned as they are not part of a series. I did find parts of it to be a bit repetitive as the girls go through their day to day routines of breaking codes, translating decoded messages, and machine operator. This made the book feel a touch too long in my opinion. I thought the character development was great, we get to see each of the characters go through every emotion and deal with some very serious events that should have broken them. Each of the girls deals with their trauma and grief in a different way, but never once do they break completely. I did like the alternating timelines as it keeps you engaged in the story and wondering what happened to land Beth in an asylum and have Osla and Mab hate her so much at the beginning. As you get closer to the end things pick up and race toward the conclusion and leave you on the edge of your seat.
The story follows an unlikely trio of friends in Osla, Mab, and Beth. Osla is a socialite who want to be seen as more than a beautiful debutante so she joins the war effort making planes and then as a translator at the very secretive Bletchley Park aka BP compound. Mab wants to rise above the poverty she was born to and make something of herself and find herself a good husband. She ends up at BP working the code breaking machines. Mab and Osla meet mousy Beth when they billet at her home with her overbearing, abusive mother. When Beth is recruited to BP because of her ability to solve puzzles, she becomes one of the best cryptanalysts the war effort could have asked for. The story follows the girls through their time at BP as they navigate the daily life of secrecy required by BP and how it impacts their relationships with others. It also follows the girls after the war has ended and they have moved on from BP. Mab has a new family, Osla is getting ready to attend the royal wedding of Philip and Elizabeth, and Beth is in a sanitarium after being accused of having a mental break during her last days at BP. In an attempt to clear her name, she reaches out to Osla and Mab, she asks for their help finding a traitor in their midst, but neither of them are sure they can forgive her for what she did. Can they put the past aside to crack one final code and save Britain from a traitor?
After finishing this I immediately looked up Bletchley Park. It really was the epicenter of the UK's codebreaking efforts during WWII. While I don't believe our three main characters were real, I do believe they were inspired by women who really did work at BP during the war. BP was renovated and turned into a museum which you can actually visit (when it isn't closed because of COVID). It think that is really cool! You can tell the author put in a ton of research to make the historical aspect of the story accurate. I always appreciate historical accuracy that is woven into a good story.
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