As a child I found the history and biography books in our school library, and was enthralled. When I got older and discovered historical archives, the tension between public history in books and the secret or forgotten histories tucked away was irresistible. Writing books has taken me to five continents on journeys into everything from medicinal black markets to the traces of a wartime commercial spy network. For my latest book, digging through classified OSS files showed me what amazing stories still lie waiting for us.
McIntosh takes a fresh approach to espionage, putting aside the trench coats and Mata Haris for the real "Code-room Mata Hari" and other little-known heroines of the war. A veteran of CIA and OSS operations herself, McIntosh knows what she's writing about, and draws from more than 100 interviews with other women operatives. She portrays several dozen here, including the China escapades of Julia McWilliams (known today as Julia Child). It also features the Musac project, with broadcasts targeted at Wehrmacht troops with fake German news and music sung by agent Marlene Dietrichn designed to infiltrate their sympathies.
The daring missions and cloak-and-dagger skullduggery of America's World War II intelligence agency, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), are well documented and have become the stuff of legend. Yet the contributions of the four thousand women who made up one-fifth of the OSS staff have gone largely unheralded. Here for the first time are their fascinating stories, told by one of their own.
A seasoned journalist and veteran of sensitive OSS and CIA operations, Elizabeth McIntosh draws on her own experiences and in-depth interviews with more than one hundred OSS women to uncover some of the most tantalizing stories…
A thoroughly good espionage yarn I always look forward to reading a Boyd although for some reason it took me a while to get round to this one such a novel idea forgive the pun.
'Eva Delectorskaya,' I said mystified. ' Who's that?' 'Me,' she said. 'I am Eva Delectorskaya.' What happens to your life when everything you thought you knew about your mother turns out to be an elaborate lie? During the long, hot summer of 1976, Ruth Gilmartin discovers that her very English mother Sally is really Eva Delectorskaya, a Russian emigre and one-time spy. In 1939 Eva is a beautiful twenty-eight year old living in Paris. As war breaks out, she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious, patrician Englishman. Under his tutelage she learns to become…
WW2 was part of my family history; my RAF father and three of his seven brothers had been volunteers; one was killed. Plunging into the rabbit warren of SOE, I discovered a secret world of agents and dangerous missions, heroism, and horrors experienced deep beneath the official historical narrative. Ordinary men and women threw themselves into selfless service, putting their need to stop the Nazis even above personal survival. These books are a tribute to all such unsung heroes. Their lives should not be in vain; they inspire me and might inspire YOU. These recommended books bring them back to life, if only through our admiration and respect.
I loved this book because it made me cry: twice! Such a moving and inspiring story. The heroine in this case is Violette Szabo, who was only twenty-two years old when her husband, Etienne, a captain in the French Foreign Legion, lost his life in the battle at El Alamein.
The tragedy of his death was what catapulted her into her mission with the SOE as an underground agent working with the French maquisards to sabotage and subvert everything German. Her bravery, her indomitable character, and her calmness under pressure are what kept me turning the pages; I just couldn’t wait to see whether or not she’d survive, whether she’d ever see the baby daughter she’d left behind in England ever again.
Carve Her Name With Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris Iin 1921 to an English motor-car dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training. Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police. On June…
WW2 was part of my family history; my RAF father and three of his seven brothers had been volunteers; one was killed. Plunging into the rabbit warren of SOE, I discovered a secret world of agents and dangerous missions, heroism, and horrors experienced deep beneath the official historical narrative. Ordinary men and women threw themselves into selfless service, putting their need to stop the Nazis even above personal survival. These books are a tribute to all such unsung heroes. Their lives should not be in vain; they inspire me and might inspire YOU. These recommended books bring them back to life, if only through our admiration and respect.
I knew I’d love this book even before I read it, as I’ve read almost everything by this author and loved all her work. What a treat to find that she had written a WW2 novel with heroic characters inspired by the SOE agents Diana Rowden and Violette Szabo!
But I particularly loved this book because it brings to life a disturbing event that has haunted me since I visited the French concentration camp Natzweiler-Struthof in 2018.
This camp was primarily for male political prisoners, but in 1944, four women were brought there and put to death by lethal injection and then cremated in the camp’s oven. Diana Rowden was one of those four agents.
It’s a stretch to say I “loved” the fact that this book brought this horrific scene to life through the Diana Rowden character. No, I didn’t “love” it–but it chilled me to the bone and…
From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say and The Warsaw Orphan, Kelly Rimmer—for fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz!
A “MOST ANTICIPATED TITLE” by
Harper's Bazaar
B&N Reads
BookBub
Goodreads
Fresh Fiction"The author’s research has captured the tension that those who lived through that time experienced at deep levels. Kelly Rimmer’s scenes in both eras are fraught with anxiety, urging the reader to keep turning the page, anxious to learn about each character’s experiences, right up to the very end." — New York Journal of Books
In 2017, my family was invited to France to retrace my father’s footsteps after his plane was shot down over occupied France in May 1944. During that visit, I realized how many ordinary citizens aided in his evasion. I thought their stories deserved to be preserved. I spent the next five years researching and writing, The Duty of Memory. During four trips to France to visit the actual sites, I interviewed eyewitnesses and became friends with family members of those depicted and learned their stories. I also studied documents from the US National Archives and the French Military Archives, as well as personal documents provided by the families.
I picked this book up on my brother's recommendation. His men’s book club read it, and he said they all liked it. If a bunch of men enjoyed a book about a female spy, well, I took that as high praise.
Because I am a student of WW2 in Europe, I was already familiar with Virginia Hall. Until I read this book, I had no idea of the extent of her bravery and sacrifice. I seldom find myself so engrossed in a biography.
Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator, and the Times of London
Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography
"Excellent...This book is as riveting as any thriller, and as hard to put down." -- The New York Times Book Review
"A compelling biography of a masterful spy, and a reminder of what can be done with a few brave people -- and a little resistance." - NPR
As a native Oregonian of Polish descent, I was born in the small town of Sweet Home, Oregon. After finishing high school, I moved to Portland where I graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a Master’s degree in psychology. I spent twelve years as a psychotherapist, publishing over a dozen articles. After joining a writing group and trying my hand at fiction, my stories, articles, and poems have been published in magazines and newspapers—including Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Oregonian, Catholic Sentinel, Dziennik Związkowy, and The Polish American Journal. My debut novel, Victoria’s War, won CIBA’s Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and was #1 Best Seller on Amazon Kindle Unlimited in German Historical Fiction.
We all know the name of the woman behind the perfume—Coco Chanel, right? But how many of us know the story behind this legendary woman? Very few! I didn’t really know the first thing about her! Still, I loved her! In The Queen of Paris, I got to know the woman who created Chânél No.5 and designed the first “little black dress.”
And I learned why Chânél No. 5 is made in Pairs. The secret is this: because the jasmine used in making this particular perfume is only grown in France! No more spoilers! Except to say that Ewen’s Coco enticed me from the start with gossip and truths about one of the most successful women in the fashion industry—and what lengths she was willing to go to save her life’s work during WWII.
A riveting historical novel that I would read again!
A Barnes & Noble Pick of Best Indie eBooks of 2020 An iBooks Bestseller in Fiction A Pop Sugar Pick of Books set in Paris
Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style—the iconic little black dress—and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII—as discovered in recently…
As a woman physician/scientist coming up through the ranks of a male-dominated profession and working for the federal government in the 1970's, 80's and 90's, just as the "sisterhood" characters did, I identified deeply with many of the characters' experiences, and was surprised to learn that what they experienced in the intelligence community was very similar to what I had experienced in my own field in the federal government. Learning these stories of female spies explained a lot about the ways that my own career was directed, and it made me feel a sisterhood with the women described in the book, whose courage and lives are brought to light after having been hidden so many decades. Quite apart from that, it is a great read - exciting, disturbing in parts, uplifting in that these women soldiered on to the point that they made enormous contributions despite having been shunted to…
A “rip-roaring” (Steve Coll), “staggeringly well-researched” (The New York Times) history of three generations at the CIA, “electric with revelations” (Booklist) about the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spycraft, and tracked down Osama bin Laden, from the bestselling author of Code Girls
A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • A FOREIGN POLICY AND SMITHSONIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In development as a series from Lionsgate Television, executive produced by Scott Delman (Station Eleven)
Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their…
Having arranged to interview Kate Quinn on the Rock, Paper, Swords! podcast, I decided to read one of her most popular novels in preparation. I was worried it might not be my kind of thing and that readint it would be a chore to read. I should not have been concerned. The Alice Network is a gripping, tightly plotted dual timeline thriller set around both 20th century world wars. It kept me gripped all the way from the first page to the explosive final scenes. A triumph!
In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women-a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947-are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption. 1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might…
As an educator, I’ve experienced the power of true stories to engage readers, widen their world, spur thinking, and support content areas. I’ve learned plenty from these books, too! As an author, I’m fascinated with many aspects of the American Revolutionthat I never learned about as a student. Researching this time period has revealed much more than men at war. The revolution affected every aspect of life—a “world turned upside-down.” Today, we’re fortunate to have a range of stories that help kids understand that history is about people much like them facing the challenges of their time and place.
I’ve always loved stories with intrigue. Here’s a book about a female spy during the American Revolution.
George Washington’s spies came from all walks of life—men, women, people of color. When Anna Smith Strong hung her laundry out to dry, she was multitasking! She appeared to be doing the wash, but she was using code to pass information about British military activity. As a member of the Culper spy ring, she took risks in the fight for independence.
The thrilling true story of the female spy who helped save the American Revolution
Anna Smith Strong (1790-1812) was a fearless woman who acted as a spy for George Washington during the Revolutionary War. Recruited by Washington's spymaster, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, she joined the Culper Ring, a group of American spies. General Washington placed a huge amount of trust in his spies, and Anna helped pass him important messages at a great risk to herself and her family. One of her cleverer devices was to hang laundry on the line in a planned fashion so that other spies could read…
I don’t write about well-behaved women. I prefer rebels and outcasts, women who, by choice or circumstance, live outside of social norms. 19th-century American history is full of such women—if you know where to look. Hint: not in most public-school textbooks. They’re found, instead, in archives and libraries, in old newspapers and journals, in family letters and autobiographies. The characters in my most recent novel, Reliance, Illinois, were inspired by badass 19th-century women, such as Victoria Woodhull, Mary Livermore, and Olympia Brown. Each of the novels in the list below were inspired by or based on audacious women. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!
Lois Leveen uses a mixture of fact and well-researched speculation to bring Mary Bowser, a largely unknown Civil War hero, to the page. Free and educated in the North, Mary Bowser returned to slavery to spy on the Confederacy in the household of Jefferson Davis. This much, at least, is known about the woman. Leveen imagines Bowser’s early life, braids in national history, and leaves us breathless with wonder at the courage and audacity required to complete the assignment Bowser accepted.
I love novels that pick up where the historical record ends, especially novels that do so lovingly and with such tender respect for the real woman lost in history.
Based on the remarkable true story of a freed African American slave who returned to Virginia at the onset of the Civil War to spy on the Confederates.
Author Lois Leveen combines fascinating facts and ingenious speculation to craft a historical novel that will enthrall readers of women’s fiction, historical fiction, and acclaimed works like Cane River and Cold Mountain that offer intimate looks at the twin nightmares of slavery and Civil War. A powerful and unforgettable story of a woman who risked her own freedom to bring freedom to millions of others, The Secrets of Mary Bowser celebrates the…
