Note to Kate Quinn: can I please be one of your beta readers?? (Not opposed to reduce to shameless begging here)

I LOVED this! Quinn’s writing is perfection. Her ability to connect historical events with the kiss of beautifully interwoven fiction never fails to provoke a smile or a tear…this is an additional super-wow novel by one of my favourite writers of the here and now. Man…I can’t get enough… 

I’ve just finished reading and I’m all full up with emotion and knowledge; I need to sit and contemplate for a while. That’s what a good novel does to you—and this one sidelined me for two days. It was all-consuming. I completely lost myself in the story, a character-rich retelling of a boggling reality from our recent history, with lessons for life and international relations on every page—lessons we still haven’t seemed to learn. This novel was pleasantly absorbing from start to finish, and beyond…

What a clever display of intelligent, well-researched writing that exudes a natural wit. It quietly allows us to slip into the thoughts and secrets of a diverse cast of irresistible characters–even if their attractiveness is bathed in incomprehensible circumstances and the unsavoury machiavellianism of mid-twentieth century military power struggles. The complexities of cross-world politics are explored through rigid relationships teetering on distrust, broken down through friendship. In the midst of the multiplying snake-pit of Russian-American relations during WWII, we enter the harrowing story of Mila’s war, her heartbreaking experience with love, the pain and burden of absentee motherhood, her life as a dedicated soldier, and her reluctant involvement in propelling two nations to a momentary break in their distrust to form a fraught partnership against a common enemy.

Mila’s is a story I never thought I’d be attracted to reading, but by Kate Quinn’s skilled pen this Russian sniper has become to me another newly revered heroic woman of history. The author’s note at the end of the book outlines the research that has gone into this project and piques my interest in the Russian Night Witches (et al) even more. The amazing-but-no-big-deal women of history and our world continue shine on…

Kate Quinn is a Master Storyteller. I will read anything she writes with confidence that I’ll love it.