The Alice Network

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Manufacturer: Kate Quinn
Brand: Historical Fiction
Brew: Paperback
Steeping Time: 494 pages
Tea Service: Book Club/ Personal
Strength:

Synopsis: “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, code name Alice, 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. That is 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.”

Y’all. This book. AH-MAZING.

To start, this is the second time I’ve read The Alice Network. I read it for the first time with my book club and I was very excited about it when one of our ladies recommended it. WWI and WWII are some of my main historical interests, so I was chomping at the bit to read this one. I usually rent book club books from the library because a lot of the time, they aren’t something I’d normally pick up. As soon as we settled on The Alice Network, I got online and bought it. Zero regrets. Money well spent.

I loved this book and decided to read it a second time to study the writing style. I’ve been working on a book of my own, and I’ll admit, when I first read The Alice Network, it made me simultaneously want to get to work on my own book while also making me never want to pick up a pen again. Why write a book about a wartime female spy when this book is incredible and I’ll never top it?

Fast forward a year and here I am, rereading it to study the writing style to help me with my book. After the first few chapters, I completely forgot about the writing study and got sucked right back into the story. When I finished it last night, sitting in the bath crying, I was again struck with that feeling of working on my book while wondering what on earth the point was because this book is so amazing.

I have zero complaints about this book. None.

There is not a single negative thing I have to say about it, so buckle up for some praise because that’s all I have. First, I don’t think Kate Quinn is human. She’s a Goddess of Words. She weaves her story with ease and grace and I’m immediately there with the characters. Each character is unique, with their own voice and personality, and they each pull you into their own story. The story is incredibly vivid. It seems so real that I feel I could walk right off the page and into it. It’s a story of courage, failures, and ultimately, redemption.

The book lives dual timelines; Eve, a spy during WWI, and Charlie, who is looking for her cousin in 1947. These two timelines are brought together when a distraught Charlie seeks out Eve for help in locating Rose, a cousin she cares for deeply, who went missing during WWII. In what I think was a brilliant move to help distinguish these as separate storylines, Eve’s story is written in third person, and Charlie’s is written in first person. I don’t know why I love this so much, but I do. It’s also fascinating to watch Eve as a strong young woman back in 1915 versus her older, broken version in 1947. She is the bridge between both timelines and she couldn’t be more different in each. Throughout the book, we slowly learn how Eve went from a confident spy to a raging alcoholic plagued by nightmares.

The pace is wonderfully quick, never a dull moment.

You can feel the urgency pulsing through each storyline. With Eve, you are constantly on edge alongside her as she gathers information in Nazi-occupied France. There are two other women, Lili and Violet, that come and go throughout the book as they perform their own spy work. Like with Eve, I held my breath every time they were in a situation where they might get caught. With Charlie, you are on the run, escaping her mother and heading out on an insane search for her lost cousin. I spent the entire book on the edge of my seat, even on the second read-through. It’s just that good.

This is not an easy, happy story.

It follows a strong group of women as they navigate the atrocities of two world wars. They struggle. They hurt. There are other key characters in this book who deal with horrible cruelties that still haunt them. There are depictions of death, suicide, and abortion, all talked about openly and in stark words. I appreciate that these topics aren’t shied away from. The reality of war is brazenly present and the characters are forced to deal with those realities, whether they do so successfully or not. It’s hard, yes, but it’s real. In fact, some of these characters are quite real indeed.

Lili, Violette, and Captain Cameron (Major Cecil Aylmer Cameron) are all based on real people that served during WWI. Lili is based on the Queen of Spies, Louise de Bettignies, an incredible woman who ran the most successful spy ring in France. Violette, whose real code name was Charlotte, is based on Marie Leonie van Houtte. She was part of the same network that Louise ran, and they did indeed work together. Captain Cameron is based on Major Cecil Aylmer Cameron. In real life, he recruited Louise and oversaw spy operations from Folkstone. His prison sentence was also true. Much of The Alice Network tells the true story of these people, although there are artistic liberties taken in some instances. Minor characters Antoine and his sister Aurelie, and Madame Rouffanche are also real people that appear in the book.

Alongside real people are real events.

The many strategies that Lili used in the book to get past border crossings are accurate to how Louise operated. Also true are the reports that she smuggled through about the Kaiser’s visit and Verdun. The outcomes of those messages are also true. This book is incredibly accurate and is practically lifted off the pages of history and then tweaked a little to accommodate fictional characters. It’s a beautiful, breakneck speed story that I will read again and again. This is an absolute must-read for WWI and WWII history lovers.

Have you read The Alice Network? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it! Want to read it? Click here to get a copy for yourself.
Cheers,
Lydia