The Alice Network

Fictional, dramatized story based on actual events and people (be sure to read the epilogue as the author explains the parallels!) I believe I've read about the real historical women spies, so that made the story richer. The characters were fascinating and had such strong personalities - especially Alice. Fun read.

Quinn has clearly done her research: nearly every single beat of her story about female spies in WWI is hold up by primary sources. Usually I feel uncomfortable about fictionalizations of real people, but this is such an untouched area of history, that I loved seeing these characters come to life. The stories about how women managed to sneak in and out of occupied European countries, and pass messages on hat pins, hidden by the misconceptions that women would never participate in war efforts were fascinating.

Like other reviewers, I thought the book as a whole was less than a sum of its parts -- I liked Charlie, and I was interested in her search following WWII, but it was much thinner. I was hoping for more about the war effort in WWII. It was vaguely alluded to at various points that Eve worked WWII, but never really explored.