This book was better than I expected it to be, and I expected it to be good. I devoured this in two sittings because I never wanted to put it down. I was so invested in these women's stories, in what happened to them. I think this is probably about as close to horror as a nonfiction book can get.

Fair warning, this book is a hard read. It's quite graphic about the women's illnesses which can be horrifying, and the way the company treats them is borderline cartoonishly evil which is also a bit difficult. Definitely worthwhile, but not for everyone.

The only negative thing I have to say is sometimes the writing seemed a bit too melodramatic. Exclamation points were used regularly, chapters would end on things like "they learned radium was dangerous, but no one told the girls..." and it seemed so unnecessary. It didn't detract from the book, but I did roll my eyes a few times. With such an intense story, the writing doesn't have to work so hard to keep the reader's interest.

But the story was everything. I was enthralled. What these women went through was horrifying and terrible and so seemingly easy to prevent. But no one bothered preventing it. Many of them were just teenagers when they worked with radium paint, and many were dead by 30. (Although I did kind of wish Moore had stopped referring to them as "girls" once they were adult women.)

The scope of the story was so wonderfully done. There were many women involved in two different cities and the book covered their lives from beginning to work at the factories until death, some of them in the 1920s and some not for decades. I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with the women because there were so many, but Moore did a great job of keeping details about them relevant to remind you who was who.

There was a point where I kind of expected the story would stop and just start summarizing later events, but it never did. Moore covered everything about this case. I think sometimes nonfiction focuses on a limited moment and everything beyond is secondary summary, but that wasn't the feeling I got from this book. It felt like nothing was left out and I loved it for that.

Overall, this was an important and well told story. I can't recommend it enough. It's easily one of my favorites of the year.

I found this so irritating. I don't even remember how far I got into it, but I couldn't think of anything positive to say. At one point I decided I couldn't handle anymore so I stopped. This was really similar to Wild by Cheryl Strayed in the sense that both women irritated me so much. Not that either of them seemed like bad people, just that I found them both so incredibly annoying. So I suppose I might recommend this if you liked Wild, but I have very nearly completely erased this book from my memory.

This book somehow manages to be both an over the top ridiculous spy thriller and boring. It's told from the perspectives of an American spy attempting to assassinate Hitler, her handlers back in England, and the Nazi officer hunting her down.

I couldn't get into the main character or her situation because it was so unrealistic. Kate is a spy who's received, at most, a couple of weeks of training. Then she's dumped in Paris with a gun, a little bit of money, and no contacts or escape plan. She doesn't know how she's meant to get to the church where she's meant to assassinate Hitler (no one arrives to take her), but she does. She doesn't know how she's supposed to run away, but she does. She doesn't know how to contact anyone in the spy network, but she does. All of this with barely any training. Even the Nazi officer attempting to track her down comments on how intelligent and experienced and highly trained she is. None of it makes sense and the suspension of disbelief required was too much for me.

This book takes place in the span of 36 hours after the attempted assassination. There's a tiny bit on either side, but the majority is just the same day and a half. It's all just Gunter, the Nazi, hunting for Kate who's on the run. With how much happens, you'd really think it would take a little more time. Kate runs, Gunter follows. Kate hides, Gunter searches. Kate is afraid, Gunter is determined. That is the entire book. It's very formulaic because nothing outside of that has time to happen. There's very little reflection or character growth because it's all running and hiding. I was bored. I wanted something else to happen.

I also found myself a bit annoyed by Gunter's character. He's a Nazi, so obviously the "bad guy," but he's still one of the good ones. He doesn't even like Hitler. He supports justice. He doesn't want to murder anyone without a trial, you see, he's just following orders. Like someone didn't watch the Nuremberg trials. He wasn't meant to be a good guy, but he was definitely supposed to stand apart from the other "bad" Nazis. I've read plenty of books where Nazis have been humanized, because of course they were real people, but there's a difference between humanizing a character and giving him a "not like like other Nazis" story.

Other little things annoy me. At one point just after shooting at Hitler, Katie is stopped and searched by Nazis. She has the rifle in a bag and while they search her person, they never bother actually looking in the bag. Like what idiocy. She also has a very obvious American accent when speaking French (this is stated during her minimal spy training at the beginning), and yet no one seems to notice while she's running around Paris.

The writing also seemed kind of rough. I honestly thought this was a debut novel until I read more about Cara Black. It just doesn't read smoothly. At one point, Kate is having a conversation with her friend. For three straight pages, every time Kate had a line of dialogue, she addressed Greer with her name. Literally every single one. It was ridiculous.

Perhaps you would enjoy this more than me if you like over the top spy thrillers and don't mind suspending your disbelief a little more than. Or if you also enjoy the concept of a chase taking place over an entire book. But I really didn't enjoy this one. It was disappointing and I was more relieved to finish it than anything else.

This is a review of an ARC I received.

Do you ever just completely forget a book the second you aren't reading it anymore? Like gosh it was totally find and kept my interest whenever I picked it up, but right now I can't think of a single thing to say about it. And I only finished it yesterday.

This book got a little too weird into satanism and exorcism for my tastes. At a point it backpedaled some, but it was still kind of eh. Not my favorite topic. It was one of those books that gave me the vibe that the author had a topic she wanted to write about rather than a story she wanted to tell.

It also felt like it kind of lost the thread of the story at some point. There was just so much going on and so many people involved that I struggled to keep up with what was important and who mattered. Like it needed to me edited down not in length but in overall scope.

But it was fine. Plenty entertaining while I was reading it, just not one that had any lasting power.

I think all of these books have been right on the border of 3 and 4 stars for me, so it was probably time one dipped slightly below. My general thoughts on this series remain the same.

I adore all the characters and relationships. They're really the driving force of the story, despite the high fantasy plot, and they're wonderfully done. Despite the large cast, everyone has such a distinct personality. Even the individual relationships are so well done. MacLeod has me living and dying for these characters, and it's fantastic.

The pacing was more of an issue for me in this book than the last two. With how many characters there are and how much is going on, it really felt like it needed to be longer. There just wasn't enough time for everyone's development. So many things happened off the page, just to be described in dialogue later. And while the characters and their relationships are great, they would be so much better if they had the time to be fully developed. The magic is really cool, but it feels minimally explored because the book is so short. It felt like everything about this book would have been so much better if it'd been slowed down a bit and given a little more time.

But I did really enjoy this series overall. I know there will be more, but I'm not certain yet if I'll continue. I'm not absolutely in love, and this book ended on a satisfying enough note that I would be content with this as a conclusion. But I may change my tune when the next book is published.

I'd highly recommend this if you like character driven fantasy books. It's so cool and original and I've thoroughly enjoyed all three of these books. It's a really fun time.