The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
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.
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
When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann
Non-fiction About the Pacific Theater During WWII:
Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley with Ron Powers
Other Non-Fiction
Happy Reading!
Annette
Comments