1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of East-End London poverty, works the legendary code-breaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart. 1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips postwar Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger—and their true enemy—closer...
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-During WWII, smart people are needed at Bletchley Park to break codes and do intelligence. Debutante Osla meets determined Mab from the East End, and they meet shy timid Beth–all work at BP and become unlikely friends during the war. In 1947, Osla and Mab each receive letters begging for help from Beth, who has been in an asylum since D-Day, the day their friendship mysteriously fell apart.
[Beth realized there was a spy/traitor at BP, but that person arranged for her to be put away just at the end, when her friendship has fallen apart because Mab learns that Beth didn’t warn them and led to the deaths of her husband and daughter. Osla and Mab do go to help Beth and break her out of the asylum before she’s forced into a lobotomy, they call in the old gang, break the rose code in time to prove Giles is the spy. They track/chase him down, HEA.]
-Though this book is long, I enjoyed it! Plenty of time is spent laying out the characters and developing them over the war, and their emotions are star players. I had an exciting time while reading (though after some time, it’s not lingered), and did find it somewhat suspenseful/mysterious. I had a fun time guessing who the traitor was, and hadn’t been totally sure before the reveal.
There were some convenient/weird elements: Osla’s coat guy; Prince Philip romantic plotline; Harry so casually coming back, nbd; Mab’s second family that we didn’t have time to really care about. The book is definitely character heavy, and pacing was uneven and back heavy on the action; I’d honestly have liked more of the spy elements, and more of the friendship too.
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