Women warriors--unsung heroes!
The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
Gripping story of the Women's Branch of SOE, Special Operation Executive, "charged [by Churchill] to “set Europe ablaze” through sabotage and subversion " during World War II.
It's 1946. A young widow, Grace Healey, finds a suitcase in Grand Central, New York. Puzzled she opens it and takes out a bunch of photos of a young women. Why? Even as I was taken aback at that action, it's from here the story springs. Struck by the inanity of her action, Grace tries to return the photos to the suitcase. It's missing! Her determination to find the suitcase and its owner and return the photos leads her on an extraordinary journey.
A journey that casts us back to 1943. Things "had started to go wrong, [SOE] agents [were] arrested in increasing numbers. And so the Women's Branch was created. Eleanor Trigg was charged with selecting and training the women, and that's where the story take an intriguing leap forward and swings between 1943 and 1946, told from Grace's search point of view and that of Eleanor and a young woman she trains Marie.
The action catapults us from war time Britain and France to post war New York with a side trip to France and Germany.
We are with the young women in their training and then their harrowing times behind enemy lines in France.
I was caught up in Jenoff's meticulously researched storyline that translates into an amazing story of a particular group of women's strength and courage under duress, of their involvement in espionage, of the struggle of clandestine operations, and of betrayals from unexpected quarters.
And I mustn't forget the young widowed Grace Healey. Being at Grand Central was a huge step for her. And In her search for the suitcase and its owner she begins to find her way back from her grief and guilt to healing and as yet unknown future.
I found myself totally immersed in this story, metaphorically flicking the pages over in my haste to uncover each truth.
A Harlequin ARC via NetGalley
*****
It's 1946. A young widow, Grace Healey, finds a suitcase in Grand Central, New York. Puzzled she opens it and takes out a bunch of photos of a young women. Why? Even as I was taken aback at that action, it's from here the story springs. Struck by the inanity of her action, Grace tries to return the photos to the suitcase. It's missing! Her determination to find the suitcase and its owner and return the photos leads her on an extraordinary journey.
A journey that casts us back to 1943. Things "had started to go wrong, [SOE] agents [were] arrested in increasing numbers. And so the Women's Branch was created. Eleanor Trigg was charged with selecting and training the women, and that's where the story take an intriguing leap forward and swings between 1943 and 1946, told from Grace's search point of view and that of Eleanor and a young woman she trains Marie.
The action catapults us from war time Britain and France to post war New York with a side trip to France and Germany.
We are with the young women in their training and then their harrowing times behind enemy lines in France.
I was caught up in Jenoff's meticulously researched storyline that translates into an amazing story of a particular group of women's strength and courage under duress, of their involvement in espionage, of the struggle of clandestine operations, and of betrayals from unexpected quarters.
And I mustn't forget the young widowed Grace Healey. Being at Grand Central was a huge step for her. And In her search for the suitcase and its owner she begins to find her way back from her grief and guilt to healing and as yet unknown future.
I found myself totally immersed in this story, metaphorically flicking the pages over in my haste to uncover each truth.
A Harlequin ARC via NetGalley
*****
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