Tag: World War I

Our lives and all of history are made up of small things done by small people.

Book Review | The Codebreaker’s Daughter by Amy Lynn Green

My initial assumption, on reading the title of this novel, was that the codebreaker would be male. Please forgive me for that patriarchal assumption, because this is a mother-daughter story, and the codebreaker in question is Lillian, Dinah’s mother. The story takes place over two timelines–Dinah’s propaganda work with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, and Lily’s codebreaking work in World War I.

While the story is set 80 and 100 years ago, it deals with eternal questions about the relationships between mothers and daughters, and the question of how (especially as women) we find our purpose. Is it enough to be a wife and mother? This leads to other questions – what if we aren’t a wife, or if we can’t be a mother? Then where is our purpose?

Lily/Lillian is a viewpoint character in both timelines, so we see her struggle with letting her adult daughter go, and we see Dinah’s struggle to be the independent adult daughter. We also see the power of friendship.

The story is best encapsulated in the quote above. The Codebreaker’s Daughter isn’t like so many World War II stories, stories of ordinary people dong extraordinary things. It’s more a celebration of ordinary people doing ordinary things–the things they are called to do–and being satisfied with that.

It’s a quiet and slow story until almost the very end, but it is a story that raises and addresses some difficult universal (ordinary) questions.

Recommended for fans of World War II fiction from authors such as Jennifer Mistmorgan, or fans of fiction featuring codes and ciphers from authors such as Roseanna M White.

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

About Amy Lynn Green

Amy Lynn GreenAmy Lynn Green is a lifelong lover of books, history, and library cards. She worked in publishing for six years before writing her first historical fiction novel, based on the WWII home front of Minnesota, the state where she lives, works, and survives long winters. She has taught classes on marketing at writer’s conferences and regularly encourages established and aspiring authors in their publication journeys. In her novels (and her daily life), she loves exploring the intersection of faith and fiction and searches for answers to present-day questions by looking to the past.

If she had lived in the 1940s, you would have found her writing long letters to friends and family, daydreaming about creating an original radio drama, and drinking copious amounts of non-rationed tea. (Actually, these things are fairly accurate for her modern life as well.)

Find Amy Lynn Green online at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram

About The Codebreaker’s Daughter

The Codebreaker's Daughter

Lillian once cracked ciphers during WWI–now, her daughter, Dinah, is trapped doing clerical work for the WWII OSS. Though Lillian is hesitant to return to wartime work, she is drawn to Washington, DC, by an old acquaintance. As a web of intrigue grows ever wider, mother and daughter must confront secrets in DC before the impending D-Day is compromised.
We're all good. We're all bad. The hero in our own stories. The villain in someone else's.

Book Review | The Number of Love by Roseanna M White

Margot De Wilde escaped the German occupation in Belgium, and now she and her mother are living in London where Margot works in Room 40 of the Old Admiralty Building. She’s a codebreaker—one of the stars of the department, despite being the youngest cryptographer and the only female.

She has a unique brain, in that numbers seem to rearrange themselves into words and messages.

Drake Elton is a British spy disguised as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He is half-Spanish so is the obvious choice to work as an undercover agent in neutral Spain. He finds himself back in London after a mission goes wrong. But the mission follows him to London and is now targeting him and those around him …

Including Margot

The whole concept of coding has always fascinated me, as I suspect it has fascinated Roseanna M White. I understand the basic principles of cyphers and codes, but I am clueless when it comes to the maths behind creating and (especially) cracking codes. That’s why I find a heroine like Margot De Wilde fascinating. She might be only a teenager, but she’s cleverer than most of the men working in her department and has gained their respect because of her skill.

While the research was generally excellent and well-integrated into the plot, there were a couple of anachronisms that threw me out of the story. Yes, rulers have used humans to provide intelligence on the opposing forces ever since Moses sent the twelve spies into Israel after the Hebrews escaped from Egypt. But that’s only been called HUMINT recently—it may have been human intelligence in 1917, but it certainly wasn’t HUMINT. SIGINT is equally problematic, as is hun (which should be capitalised, in the same way as american or canadian should be capitalised).

If you read Roseanna M White’s excellent Shadows Over England series, then you’ll recognise Margot De Wilde and her family from A Song Unheard. And if you’ve read The Cypher Ring series, then you’ll know Roseanna M White has a longstanding fascination with codes and codebreakers.

But don’t worry if you haven’t read them: The Number of Love is an excellent standalone novel that combines White’s love of codes with an excellent romantic suspense story set against the backdrop of World War I London.

The characters are fascinating, the writing is excellent, and the result is a unique page-turner.

Recommended for fans of historical fiction, and for those intrigued by movies such as Enigma or Hidden Figures. I’m looking forward to reading the next in the series.

Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

The Numbers of Love by @RoseannaMWhite is excellent. The characters are fascinating, the writing is excellent, and the result is a unique page-turner. #BookReview #ChristianFiction Share on X

About Roseanna M White

Roseanna M. White pens her novels beneath her Betsy Ross flag, with her Jane Austen action figure watching over her. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two children, editing and designing, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna has a slew of historical novels available, ranging from biblical fiction to American-set romances to her new British series. She lives with her family in West Virginia.

Find Roseanna M White online at:

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube 

About The Number of Love

Three years into the Great War, England’s greatest asset is their intelligence network–field agents risking their lives to gather information, and codebreakers able to crack every German telegram. Margot De Wilde thrives in the environment of the secretive Room 40, where she spends her days deciphering intercepted messages. But when her world is turned upside down by an unexpected loss, for the first time in her life numbers aren’t enough.

Drake Elton returns wounded from the field, followed by an enemy who just won’t give up. He’s smitten quickly by the intelligent Margot, but how can he convince a girl who lives entirely in her mind that sometimes life’s answers lie in the heart?

Amid biological warfare, encrypted letters, and a German spy who wants to destroy not just them but others they love, Margot and Drake will have to work together to save themselves from the very secrets that brought them together.

You can find The Number of Love online at:

Amazon US | Amazon AU | ChristianBook | Goodreads | Koorong