This is our book club selection for July. I bought this book about six weeks ago and left it sitting on my side table until a couple days ago. It is over 600 pages, so that probably wasn’t the smartest move.

I love reading historical books, especially those about WWII and the Vietnam area and learning things that I didn’t know. This book definitely does that and although it describes the process of code breaking and the machines used to do it, the descriptions zoomed right over my head. Did you know that a “kirby grip” was a bobby pin?

It’s hard to imagine what my parents and grandparents went through during World War II  and rationing when I think about what a self-centered society we have become.

It was a good book and I give it ★★★★.

From Amazon:

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 in this unforgettable story of women in WWII.

1947. In a riveting dual timeline, 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…