historical fiction
Osla and Mab became friends when they were both employed by
a code-cracking arm of the British military during WWII. Osla had been raised as a lady in a wealthy
family and she even dated Prince Philip before he married Queen Elizabeth. (Osla's character
is based on a real person.) Mab’s family struggled financially but she was
driven to do better for herself and she set out to meet an educated man with
whom to live comfortably. Wanting to aid the war effort, both women got hired
for top-secret roles and were billeted together in the Finch household. Mab and
Osla helped Beth Finch get hired in the code-breaking section too. We are made to know
that these friends will have some sort of falling out at the end of the war.
One of them has been wrongly placed in an asylum and needs the other two to
help her get out.
I was drawn into The Rose Code immediately. How can you not get behind women trying to
improve their situations and find something meaningful to do with their time in
1940s England? The little mysteries were not difficult to guess along the way
but the story-weaving was well done and engaging. I had to keep reading to find
out what was going to happen to tear them apart and why someone would desire to
get rid of one of them by sending her to an asylum. The characters all felt
real and each of the main three protagonists had interesting storylines of
their own. The ups and downs of their lives were very compelling.
While set during WWII and based around characters breaking
German and Russian coded messages in order to help the Allied troops, I
wouldn’t really call this a “war novel” because it didn’t involve much in the
way of battles or include the hardships suffered by those being targeted by
Hitler’s regime. Rather, it was a story about people trying to do their best in
difficult times. I really enjoyed the novel, including the epilogue by the author
explaining the realities and the fictions within. Of the three novels I’ve read
by Kate Quinn, this is definitely my favorite!
The narrator was Saskia Maarleveld who always does a
terrific job. This novel was one of the best I’ve heard from her—great voice
acting and a large vocal repertoire including male voices. The only thing
holding me back from giving her a + is that Mab had a low female voice and
there were dialogues between her and male characters a couple times in which it
was hard to distinguish which character was speaking. I give her a very solid
A.
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