The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

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 Worth the Six Hundred Pages 

Top secret codebreakers during WWII, a royal wedding, friendships, love, betrayals, a madhouse, and even a Mad Hatter literary society—this book has it all!  I was drawn to this well-written, mesmerizing, historical fiction like a magnet.

 

The book toggles between the early 1940s when three women work at Bletchley Park in England.  This is the top secret location where the codebreakers work frantically to decrypt German, Italian, and other messages. The story then pivots to 1947, right before the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Philip of Greece, and a mystery surrounding a woman imprisoned in a mental institution.  

 

Although this beefy book wanders outside my comfort zone at 626 pages, I was hooked the entire time.  It wasn’t like other longer books where I wished they would end already, where I think the author should have and easily could have lopped off a lot to bring it down to a still-engaging read.  This book kept me going. I loved the characters, the time period, and setting.  It was well-researched, captivating, and informative.  

 

I liked the author’s note at the end where she explains about the real people she fictionalized and of course everything involving Bletchley Park.


This book made mw want to visit the many real locations she mentioned starting with Bletchley Park which is now a museum and onto other places like Bettys Tearoom in York, the cathedral in Coventry, Claridge's hotel, Cafe de Paris, Veeraswarmy Indian Restaurant in London, and Surprise View in Derwentwater in the Lake District. I could do a whole British tour based on  The Rose Code. 


Left:  Bletchley Park, photo by DeFacto - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
Middle: Veeraswamy, photo by Alex.muller - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
Right: Coventry Cathedral: photo by DeFacto - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Historical Fiction Set in WWII:

Address Unknown by Kressmann Taylor

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – Won Pulitzer Prize  

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan 

City of Thieves by David Benioff 

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan (Mid-Kids’ Book)

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay 

The Girl From the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 

The Last Train to London by Meg Waite Clayton 

The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris 

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker (Mid-Kids’ Book)

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter 

When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor

U.S. Internment Camps Historical Fiction Set During WWII: 

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Historical Fiction Set in the Pacific Theater During WWII: 

A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute

Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac (Mid-Kids’ Book)

Non-fiction Reading About the Holocaust:

In Our Hearts We Were Giants by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev

Light of Days by Judy Batalion

Night by Elie Wiesel 

When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann 

Non-fiction About the Pacific Theater During WWII: 

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers 

Hiroshima by John Hersey 

Other Non-Fiction

Night Witches by Bruce Myles


Happy Reading!

Annette


Comments

Davida Chazan (The Chocolate Lady) said…
It didn't feel like it was so long while I was reading it, so that's why I gave it 5/5 stars.
June 4, 2021 at 7:33 AM
Reading in the Garden said…
I agree. It did not disappoint!
June 5, 2021 at 10:47 AM
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