The Alice Network

Quinn has clearly done her research: nearly every single beat of her story about female spies in WWI is hold up by primary sources. Usually I feel uncomfortable about fictionalizations of real people, but this is such an untouched area of history, that I loved seeing these characters come to life. The stories about how women managed to sneak in and out of occupied European countries, and pass messages on hat pins, hidden by the misconceptions that women would never participate in war efforts were fascinating.

Like other reviewers, I thought the book as a whole was less than a sum of its parts – I liked Charlie, and I was interested in her search following WWII, but it was much thinner. I was hoping for more about the war effort in WWII. It was vaguely alluded to at various points that Eve worked WWII, but never really explored.

Historic novel about the exploits of female spies during the world wars, cloaked in a story of an American girl seeking her long lost French cousin who disappeared during the war. It is a bit far-fetched but nonetheless an engaging story. It does portray the women who were involved in espionage . . . who had such strong convictions that they compromised their personal integrity to win the war and defeat the Germans. That's a part of history that has been lost. A pregnant, young woman and an older woman whose role in espionage ruined the rest of her life are the primary characters. There is also a man in the middle. It was easy to root for all of them to find happiness and put their demons to rest.