Book Review: "The Rose Code" by Kate Quinn
“The Rose Code” by Kate Quinn
Synopsis: 1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything--beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses--but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park's few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.
1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter--the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger--and their true enemy--closer...
Rating: 4.5
Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, psychological abuse
Review: I have a few authors that are automatic adds to my library, and after reading — and loving! — “The Huntress” a few years ago, Kate Quinn has a firm place on my list. I was especially excited to see her tackle one of my favorite “untold” stories of World War II: what might have happened at Bletchley Park. For those of you who don’t know, I was a British history major many moons ago, and I wrote my honors thesis on World War II,* so anything that goes deep (correctly) into something from that space is a huge HUGE thrill for me.
I’m not going to mince words here: this book is tremendous.
It is hard, and it is ambitious, and it is uplifting, and it is brilliantly written, and it is tremendous.
This is the story of Osla, Mab, and Beth, three women who end up at Bletchley Park during World War II — three women brought together by mere chance, when Osla and Mab were assigned a living space at Beth’s parents house during the war. They are three incredibly different women; Osla is a debutante, dating Prince Phillip (don’t worry, it’s before Lillibet); Mab is a self-made woman with a secret history; and Beth is a quiet brilliant mind who thrives as a cryptologist. There’s intrigue and tragedy and war and spies — but there’s also romance and friendship and something wholly human about the story Kate Quinn tells.
The book opens with a mysterious note from a mental institution, and we get to go along with Osla and Mab as they try to figure just exactly what is going on. In the process, we live through the full war with these three women, the highs and lows they experienced and the important work they did to save…all of us. Don’t worry, it didn’t get too technical; even I, who is admittedly terrible at a crossword puzzle, could understand all the essential plot points.
I feel like I’ve been dismissive of the dual timeline trope that’s become as commonplace in the historical fiction world as book covers only showing a woman’s back, and that’s because, in a lot of instances, it feels lazy to inject a false mystery into the story. That’s not at all the case here. We spend the novel between the days of World War II and the two weeks immediately leading up to the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Osla’s former beau. It feels urgent because it is — we have to see why Beth is in a mental institution, who put her there, and what the Rose Code is. I think I appreciated it here because it didn’t really feel contrived; it was the same bunch of characters throughout the entire novel, and it wasn’t a mystery kicked off by a mysterious box in an attic or a weird photograph.
Bar none: this is one of the best works of World War II fiction I can remember reading, and I am only a little regretful that I sped through it in a weekend; I want to live out this story again.
*Specifically, the role of Winston Churchill from May 6, 1940 to December 7, 1941 and how that created the Cold War dynamic between the Allies (yes, I was really cool, and yes, I’m still really proud of this thesis, why do you ask?)
TL;DR: An amazing and engrossing tale of female friendship — the highs and the lows — set in one of the best war stories I can remember reading.
If You Liked This, Try These:
“The Winds of War” by Herman Wouk (the book that started my World War II fascination) - Bookshop | Kindle
and finally, pretty much anything on this round up of Women in World War II Literature - I may need to update that one with all these new releases!
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