“What did it matter if something scared you, when it simply had to be done?”
The Alice Network is a historical fiction story about WWI/WWII. It has two female perspectives covering war and its aftermath. Kate Quinn’s novel shows careful research and attention to detail to converge two women’s lives in different periods and circumstances, ultimately moving toward the same goal.
The Alice Network is a group of women living in WWI France who spy on German soldiers. Evelyn (Eve) Gardiner is a new female spy recruited and trained to work in a French cafe where many German soldiers frequent. Her boss, René Bordelon is a supporter of the Germans. A lifetime later, Charlie St Clair is searching for her cousin, Rose, who was last seen in Nazi-occupied France. A much older Eve, scarred from her experiences as a spy may hold the answers to finding Rose.
I’ve never read a spy novel featuring women that had some historical basis. The French secret agent, Louise de Bettignies was a key historical figure that brought parts of this story together. Though I know that there was some artistic license taken in The Alice Network, I think Quinn did well at balancing this with fact. I really believe the events in this novel could have easily occurred.
“We are not flowers to be plucked and shielded, Captain. We are flowers who flourish in evil.”
My favourite parts of this novel were Eve’s perspectives from WWI. The careful and premeditated way that she had to act so as to not expose herself was a dangerous and intriguing dance to read. In particular, her relationship with René Bordelon was what kept me turning the pages.
On the other hand, Charlie’s perspective was the one I found less believable and harder to enjoy. Though I’m generally open-minded when it comes to romance, I did not entirely believe that she and her love interest were well-matched. To me, they thrown together by plot, rather than by compatibility. I love my romances to be interesting and multi-faceted and I did not find that here.
I really liked the attention to detail regarding Eve’s stutter. As I was reading, it did feel authentic, not just in writing, but in how Eve lived with it and navigated it. I later read that Quinn’s husband has a stutter and that his experience was the basis for Eve’s. I liked this addition and was glad that it was done authentically, with lived experience serving as the basis for writing Eve’s own experiences.
“Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage.”
Toward the end of the book, I had a real hope for healing. Hope that the characters involved would be okay, but also I felt a hopelessness that you can’t always heal from your trauma or your past. Sometimes you just learned to live with it. This was especially true for Eve.
This was a Historical Fiction that shed light on a part of WWI/WWII history that I didn’t know; the varied roles of women in war. I liked that I got to learn and explore something with such a strong historical basis. For me, the last quarter of the book climaxed a little too neatly and wished that it was a bit less ‘neat’. On the whole, this was a decent book.
