Not exactly my thing but good if you're looking for light historical fiction that moves along. ( )

Meh. ( )

This was a great book to read. Loved the time--(spring 1941), the place--(Kent) and the glimpses of England and the people during the Blitz. I especially loved the references to wartime spy craft and the brave men and women who fought behind the scenes to help keep their country safe. Ms. Bowen's characters are real and relatable. Lord Westerham and his family of girls are a breath of fresh air, each as different from the other as can be, and the family drama that occurs within this house full of women made me smile and nod my head as I read. The family dynamics and the setting depicted perfectly what it must have been like living in the country during the Blitz. London was far away, but not far enough to keep the traitors away. Even in this idyllic country setting, the war is never far away. Many young men from the village are away and fighting in the war. Food and petrol rationing are as bad here as they were in London. One half of the house that the Westerham's own is being occupied by a British army contingent and an airfield is not far away. One of the girls and the pastor's son are each working in the intelligence field. Pamela is working in Bletchley and Ben is a junior in MI5. Neither of them can tell anyone what they are doing for the war effort, and Ben especially has to be creative with why he is not serving. When a parachutist is found dead in the fields around Farleigh, it opens up a whole can of worms, and everyone in and around the area is on high alert for some kind of German advance. Ben and Pamela find themselves in grave danger chasing potential German spies and British traitors in and around their own backyard. The book is beguiling in its simplicity and misleading by its pastoral settings. It is a cracker of an espionage book, that delights and intrigues from start to finish. ( )

This is a fairly strong mystery/spy novel set on the British home front during World War II. Scenes alternate between Bletchley Park, manor houses, MI-5, and Gestapo headquarters in Paris. The story revolves around an unidentified parachutist who plummeted to his death on the grounds of a family estate. He appears to be a British servicemember, but suspicions are quickly aroused. If he was a spy, whom was he attempting to contact, and what was his message?
I enjoyed the characters, and the plot progressed at a pretty fast clip. I was never bored. Even though the locations and focus jumped about a bit, it was never difficult to understand what was going on.
The dialogue was occasionally hindered by heavy exposition (as in, you've just been introduced to a character, and they conveniently sum up their whole back story in a few sentences directed at one of their relatives or neighbors--it came across a bit clunky). Also, the inclusion of the children trying to solve the mystery felt like it was going for token cuteness, and didn't really succeed for me.
But overall, this was decent historical fiction. ( )

This feels like an early effort. I have listened to several in a row, and perhaps that has jaded my view of this story. I preferred the narrator of this story (Gemma Dawson) to the narrator in previous Royal Spyness stories I listened to.

This story has poor movement, seems full of filler. The characters do not seem well done to me. The young man who is supposed to be clever is very dense. Also, the author has used the same description of debutantes in every single book. Dull. I endured to the end for the historical notes, but I'm done with this series and Rhys Bowen. The books seem the same. ( )