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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
It was classic Elizabeth Wein, a beautiful action-filled story with an emphasis on human relationships. So exciting and heart warming and tragic.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Louisa is alone in a world at war. With both of her parents gone and too young to join up, she takes a position helping an elderly woman make her way from England to Northern Scotland. Once there, she settles in in a village near a RAF airbase and it isn't long before Louisa finds herself surrounded by young pilots who risk their lives to protect Britain and its citizens. Soon, Louis is inadvertently caught up in an intelligence operation with a German operative and she falls in deep. In a Scottish pub and on a Scottish airbase, the course of the war could change, if Louisa is brave enough to do what must be done.
I truly loved the two other books I've read in this series and this is a bit of a prequel, based on one of the ancillary characters. I didn't like this one quite as much, but there are many tender and exciting bits, I did get a little teary at one point and the characters are interesting and complicated. I wanted a tiny bit more romance and because I've already read a lot about the real enigma, I had to actively suspend my disbelief maybe more than other readers. But the story really does work well in the historical context and I appreciated that Louisa is half-Jamacian, her color and life experience made her an intriguing character. Elizabeth Wein really does a fine job.
I truly loved the two other books I've read in this series and this is a bit of a prequel, based on one of the ancillary characters. I didn't like this one quite as much, but there are many tender and exciting bits, I did get a little teary at one point and the characters are interesting and complicated. I wanted a tiny bit more romance and because I've already read a lot about the real enigma, I had to actively suspend my disbelief maybe more than other readers. But the story really does work well in the historical context and I appreciated that Louisa is half-Jamacian, her color and life experience made her an intriguing character. Elizabeth Wein really does a fine job.
This book just isn't grabbing my attention. It is slow and boring.
Started to read in January of 2021 (01/15/21). Put it aside. Dad died. Decided to pick it up again in 2024, had no memory of the ....7% that I read.
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2.5 stars -- I had such high hopes for this book. I adore Wein's writing. I adore the whole enigma system. I was instead just...disappointed.
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2.5 stars -- I had such high hopes for this book. I adore Wein's writing. I adore the whole enigma system. I was instead just...disappointed.
Classic Elizabeth Wein WWII story.
Enjoyed the narrators.
Old lady was my fav character! Wished there was more of her!
Enjoyed the narrators.
Old lady was my fav character! Wished there was more of her!
First off I have little patience or books written from many points of view. Seems to be a popular trend among newer authors sad to say. The book reads like a Nancy Drew novel. Unfortunately I am many years past being a 12 year old so the book just did not hold my interest.
Such a great read with so many well developed characters.
YA or not... I learned a lot! Loved the Acknowledgements where the author explained and compared real life to her story.
My review of this book appears in Historical Novels Review issue 93 (August 2020):
Wein returns to her ever-increasing cadre of young pilots, spies, and support crew in this additional prequel to her award-winning World War II adventure, [b:Code Name Verity|11925514|Code Name Verity|Elizabeth Wein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388161911l/11925514._SY75_.jpg|16885788]. Characters from her earlier novels—intelligence operative Verity from the first volume, along with her pilot brother, Jamie Stuart, and his childhood friend, mechanic Ellen McEwen—are joined by an enthralling new protagonist, Louisa Adair. The tragic wartime losses of her parents bring Louisa, the teenaged daughter of a Jamaican father and an English mother, to the tiny Scottish hamlet of Windyedge in winter 1940-41, where she is installed in an ancient pub as a companion to an elderly woman with a mysterious past. The airmen of the 648 Squadron posted nearby spend their recreational hours in the pub, and Louisa becomes friends with Jamie, Ellen, and especially her charge, Jane Warner, aka Johanna von Arnim, a German refugee and former opera star.
The fascinating characters are enough to make this a wonderful novel, but Wein is in top form with a propulsive plot involving a German defector and his stolen, code-generating Enigma machine. The three separate first-person narrators have distinct voices, but their perspectives create a seamless narrative that is hard to put down. In particular, Wein’s depiction of the prejudice that Louisa and Ellen face in spite of their clear intellectual and practical gifts (Louisa for her skin color and Ellen for her family background in an itinerant Traveller clan) seems especially timely.
Fans of Wein’s intricate network of relationships spreading out from the charismatic Beaufort-Stuart clan will have fun spotting familiar names and faces from the other three novels, but the story can stand alone as an emotionally exhilarating portrait of grace under fire and friendships forged in the shared war effort.
Wein returns to her ever-increasing cadre of young pilots, spies, and support crew in this additional prequel to her award-winning World War II adventure, [b:Code Name Verity|11925514|Code Name Verity|Elizabeth Wein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388161911l/11925514._SY75_.jpg|16885788]. Characters from her earlier novels—intelligence operative Verity from the first volume, along with her pilot brother, Jamie Stuart, and his childhood friend, mechanic Ellen McEwen—are joined by an enthralling new protagonist, Louisa Adair. The tragic wartime losses of her parents bring Louisa, the teenaged daughter of a Jamaican father and an English mother, to the tiny Scottish hamlet of Windyedge in winter 1940-41, where she is installed in an ancient pub as a companion to an elderly woman with a mysterious past. The airmen of the 648 Squadron posted nearby spend their recreational hours in the pub, and Louisa becomes friends with Jamie, Ellen, and especially her charge, Jane Warner, aka Johanna von Arnim, a German refugee and former opera star.
The fascinating characters are enough to make this a wonderful novel, but Wein is in top form with a propulsive plot involving a German defector and his stolen, code-generating Enigma machine. The three separate first-person narrators have distinct voices, but their perspectives create a seamless narrative that is hard to put down. In particular, Wein’s depiction of the prejudice that Louisa and Ellen face in spite of their clear intellectual and practical gifts (Louisa for her skin color and Ellen for her family background in an itinerant Traveller clan) seems especially timely.
Fans of Wein’s intricate network of relationships spreading out from the charismatic Beaufort-Stuart clan will have fun spotting familiar names and faces from the other three novels, but the story can stand alone as an emotionally exhilarating portrait of grace under fire and friendships forged in the shared war effort.