My hand is up. I admit that I held a prejudice: what forty-something American author (without obvious European history credentials) could possibly write an historical fiction novel about the real ‘Alice Network’ entitled The Alice Network. For those who don’t know, The Alice Network was the amazing French First World War spy network led by Louise de Bettignes, alias Alice Dubois. Louise recruited women to spy and reported to her British handler on German activity in occupied France and Belgium. She was captured in 1915, tortured, and died of an infection shortly before the end of the war on 11 November 1918. I’m not usually dissuaded by reviews, but for once, I overcame my scepticism and bought the book. Hand up again. I was wrong about Kate Quinn.
Worse still, I nearly put The Alice Network down about forty pages in. I didn’t like the 1947 American heroine very much, Charlie (Charlotte) St Clair – a gormless, pregnant American college student who wasn’t terribly sure who the father of her child was and was searching for her cousin presumed lost in the Second World War. To boot, I really didn’t like the older, foul-mouthed, drunk, ex-spy Eve Gardiner either – though she obviously held a dark secret that somehow gormless Charlie would help unveil. Nonetheless, I decided to read on intrigued by the structure.
Hand on heart, this is the very first time I continued to read a book with characters I did not warm to and who – without prior warning – grabbed me by the throat and throttled me for being so judgmental. I initially felt that the book took seemingly forever to move on. That was an illusion. Quinn was building her dual timeline worlds from two points of view and that takes skill, research, hard work and time. Her characters grew before my very eyes in the most incredible – and credible – ways. By the end of the book (no spoilers) I loved them all and wanted more.
Next, I bought The Briar Club. I loved Grace March from the get-go. She reminded me a bit of Mary Poppins – someone essentially good who seemed to have no backstory – not exactly mysterious but – a weaver of white magic touching the lives of all those around her and somehow making things better. We all could use a Grace March in our lives. This is another tour de force. As each character took over the narrative in the 1950s Washington DC female boarding house at the height of the McCarthy Era – replete with its misogyny, homophobia, mobsters (not in the White House) and fear of communists under every bed – I was sad to read the previous character taking a back seat to the new narrator. I needn’t have worried. Quinn doesn’t lose anyone in her narrative and Grace March’s secret is expertly woven.
As I turn to The Rose Code I sense the scepticism returning since I know a thing or three about Bletchley Park (my husband’s auntie served in Hut 6). Still, I know better by now than to judge Kate Quinn harshly. She has produced twenty-one books in sixteen years that show a tremendous gift for writing, with thrilling yet lightly-worn historical research and a true sense of how to develop her characters and story arc.
Her books all feature a female lead, danger and adventure. . . making her one of the top historical fiction writers with reason.
If I sound enthusiastic about her writing, it is because she’s simply very good at her job. In case you’re wondering, I don’t know her but – so far – love her work. That ‘so far’ feels like the sceptic creeping in again. But I would be sceptical as an historian, biographer and novelist myself, wouldn’t I?
So, I just wanted to share my thank you to Kate Quinn (and all who support you) for writing such wonderful historical fiction.
In case you’d like to read any of Kate Quinn’s books, here they are in order:
Mistress of Rome (2010)
Daughters of Rome (2011)
Empress of the Seven Hills (2012)
The Serpent and the Pearl (2013)
The Lion and the Rose (2014)
A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii (2014)
Lady of the Eternal City (2015)
A Year of Ravens: Boudicca’s Rebellion (2015)
A Song of War: A Novel of Troy (2016)
The Alice Network (2017)
The Girl They Left Behind (2018)
The Huntress (2019)
Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution (2019)
The Rose Code (2021)
Smoke Signals (with Marie Benedict) (2021)
The Diamond Eye (2022)
The Phoenix Crown (with Janie Chang) (2023)
The Briar Club (2024)
The Astral Library (2026)