Title: The Alice Network
My
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2
We are flowers who flourish in evil.
Book Description:
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 still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe
to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free and
heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves
like a sister.
1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.
Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth ...no matter where it leads.
1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.
Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth ...no matter where it leads.
My musings:
Who doesn’t like a good suspenseful spy story, especially
one that’s based on real historical figures? It was a no-brainer that I
absolutely had to read The Alice Network after discovering it is centred around
the true story of a spy network of women based in the German occupied town of
Lille in France during WWI.
Quinn uses a dual timeline format to connect her two main
characters. One, set in 1915, tells the story of Evelyn (“Eve”) Gardiner, a
plucky young British girl who joins the war effort as a female spy to gather intelligence
in German occupied France. There she becomes part of the famous Alice Network,
led by the true historical figure of Louise de Bettignies, a well-known French
secret agent during WWI (also known under her pseudonym Alice Dubois). The
other, set in 1947, features young Charlotte St Clair (“Charlie”), a disgraced privileged
American girl, who travels to France to track down her beloved cousin Rose who
has been missing since the war. As the two women’s paths intersect, we get to
find out more about Eve’s history as a secret agent, which has left her a
broken woman, and witness Charlie’s coming of age as she sets out on her quest.
I absolutely loved Eve’s story and found the details about
the Alice Network and its secret agents utterly fascinating, especially the author’s
postscript detailing the true historical events the story is based on. How
courageous were these women! And whilst Eve is a fictional character, she
blended in well with her “real-life” companions – and who knows, there may have
been a similar background to the “real” Marguerite Quinn used as inspiration
for her character. Even the older Eve rang true for me, damaged and broken as
she was from her wartime experiences. I could imagine that life after the war
would not have been easy for those courageous women who managed to survive, but
had seen and done unimaginable things for their country. Louise must have been
one amazing lady, I ended up reading up on her on the web after finishing this
book and would love to read a whole book devoted to her!
Whilst I admire the author for conjuring up a link between
her two female protagonist that spans both World Wars, sadly Charlie’s story
did not hold the same interest for me as Eve’s, and there were times when I
struggled to keep my focus during Charlie’s chapters. Whilst Eve seemed to be
able to step out of the pages as real as her historical counterparts, Charlie
seemed a bit fake to me, her speech more befitting a 21st century
teenager than a girl brought up in the 1940’s. Whilst I realise this is fiction,
some of the little inaccuracies still niggled at me, and distracted from Eve’s
chapters, and I found myself skipping a lot of Charlie’s story to get back to
Eve’s. Unfortunately Charlie’s story was very loooong, and contained a somewhat
clichéd romance on top of it all - ugh! A bit of editing may have done wonders
here, as there were some fascinating parts that were worth exploring, such as
the story of the massacre that wiped out an entire French village during WWII. I
also enjoyed the premise of seeing Eve in her older age, trying to lay her
demons to rest, and able to help young Charlie in her quest. My issues were
just with the “fillers” in Charlie’s story, the parts that didn’t add much to
the overall plot but dragged the book out and made me impatient to get back to
Eve’s story.
Summary:
All in all, The Alice Network was an captivating and original story centered around a real female spy network during WWI that held my interest and kept me eagerly turning the pages for more. Whilst Charlie’s chapters did not intrigue me nearly as much, other readers may enjoy her chapters (including the romance) a lot more than I did. If you are a history buff and love to read books set during either of the world wars, this one is definitely worth picking up for the historical detail it contains and the unique spin on a story that isn’t told nearly as often as it deserves to be.
Thank
you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Australia
for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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