A Brit female spy durung World War II, and her life afterward.

Solid. Not an author I usually read, but I couldn't resist the topic. The book had a personal-history sort of structure that normally just annoys me, but I just flipped the pages on this. Something of a realistic wish-fulfillment book, if that makes any sense. Total comfort food. Apparently based on the stories of some of the author's friends finding out their mothers had been spies. (How cool is that?)

Total escapism. The character mentions some historical figures I can't encounter without wincing, in tones of approval. If you know history, just be ready for it. But if you want to slip away into the life of an upper-class British white woman and her adventures defending the U.K., then I won't stop you :)

It took me forever to get through this. The summary sounds promising but I was disappointed. Alex is likable as a character but this was too shallow. I kept waiting to get emotional invested yet it never happened. I felt like as the reader I was on the sidelines and not right there inside this story and the last half was more like an outline of events than anything.

All telling, no showing. Her overuse of the word “exotic” to describe other countries was problematic. The ending was actually much better than I had anticipated, but overall was bored the entire time I read this. If it wasn’t so short it would’ve been a DNF- I just couldn’t get into it.

Stuck between three and four stars. The thing is, the book was amazingly pleasant. When there was danger, there was a pleasant amount of danger. When there was sorrow, there was a pleasant amount of sorrow. Never too high, never too low.

1.5 Stars

Wow, this was like a middle schooler had read a few WWII spy novels and decided to write their own. That's how bad it was. Extremely limited sentence structure, only telling no showing, zero emotional connection to the characters, and very obvious lack of editing (SO MANY repeated sentences only a few chapters later. We are talking almost identical descriptions or explanations of things that were already obvious). I found myself cringing many times not just over the poor writing style, but also how many situations or events were shoehorned in just to say she wrote about them.

Spoiler

Don't even get me started about how Alex's depression over losing her son is miraculously cured the second she has another baby or why there needed to be another romantic connection after her husband of 50 years passed away

This is the first Danielle Steel I've ever read, so I'm not sure if all of her books are this bad, but boy if they are, I have no idea how she has become so successful as an author or why anyone still reads her books.

This honestly would have been a 0.5 star book, but I did like the fact that she explored Alex's life and career after the war. Most WWII spy or resistance novels end with the spy just going back to civilian life, which I think would be an extremely difficult transition. Placing Alex in key international locations as the world rebuilt after WWII and into the Cold War was a very interesting spin, so I appreciate the effort. This whole book felt like an outline or summary of a potentially thrilling life story, if it had been in the hands of a more competent writer.

I didn’t hate it, I really enjoyed the storyline at the start and all the interesting places the characters went to, but there was no plot for the last half of the book, no intrigue or story, it was just a basic telling of the protagonists life as they grew older. Basically the book lacked atmosphere and character development.

I used to read DS when I was younger and enjoyed the books I read. I felt she did good research and wrote good romances. However the last few years it’s been painful to read her book. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s gotten older or I am. But this book was honestly so poorly written I was shocked. She covered a four year period in two pages and it just felt so basic and not like a real spy novel at all. I don’t think I can read any more DS books unless I go down memory lane and read some of her old ones.