My Rating: 5/5 Stars
Good reads rating: 4.42/5 Stars
Cover description: “Told in interweaving timelines organized around the four code names Nancy used during the war, Code Name Hélène is a spellbinding and moving story of enduring love, remarkable sacrifice and unfaltering resolve that chronicles the true exploits of a woman who deserves to be a household name.
It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name.
As LUCIENNE CARLIER Nancy smuggles people and documents across the border. Her success and her remarkable ability to evade capture earns her the nickname THE WHITE MOUSE from the Gestapo. With a five million franc bounty on her head, Nancy is forced to escape France and leave Henri behind. When she enters training with the Special Operations Executives in Britain, her new comrades are instructed to call her HÉLÈNE. And finally, with mission in hand, Nancy is airdropped back into France as the deadly MADAM ANDRÉ, where she claims her place as one of the most powerful leaders in the French Resistance, armed with a ferocious wit, her signature red lipstick, and the ability to summon weapons straight from the Allied Forces.
But no one can protect Nancy if the enemy finds out these four women are one and the same, and the closer to liberation France gets, the more exposed she–and the people she loves–become.”
Short Version:
A book that will soar with fans of Marvel’s Peggy Carter, this story makes you forget that it is historically based, until you realize that Nancy is more than a character. The interwoven timeline and development of Nancy’s character provides brilliant texture to the story and plot escalation. The historical aspect is also well contained within the narrative, not a detail out of place, the immersion is complete and I fell in love with this story, even the horrifying parts.
Long Version:
The reason I picked this book up is because of how much it reminded me of Peggy Carter, but the kind of story I wanted for Peggy Carter, without pulled punches and softened love stories because our heroine’s origin was heartbreak. Everything I fell in love with in that character, the wit and fearlessness and refusal to be less for the men around her, was polished and reshaped into Nancy. It was doubled in Nancy, and I couldn’t get enough. If you love historical fiction and strong female characters, there is no doubt in my mind that you will love this book. But let’s jump into the fabric of the story a bit more so I can illustrate just why this narrative works so well.
The first thing that this novel does well is commanding its structure. This is an excellent example of form fits function. The divided but linear and converging, timelines provide backstory in crucial moments, escalation, a balancing of emotions, and more than anything a clear and pointed development of Nancy’s character through contrasting scenes. There is a clear and concrete effort to remind the reader that Nancy is a complex creature, feminine and steel-forged, unable to carry a tune. She is commanding a legion of men in one scene, and returning to the comforts of her easy French life being wooed by her husband in the next. The duality rounds her out and exposes interesting facets of her personality, like when wife and sergeant overlap. This structure also allows for a beautiful balancing of joy and tragedy. The successes in one narrative are followed shortly by the heartbreaks of another, keeping the reader from slipping too far into an emotional sink. Especially in a book about war, this balance is crucial.
The same emotional chord is found in the handling of the romance in this novel. As a light spot in the book, it could have been overplayed. Instead, it was allowed to seep a subtle warmth throughout the manuscripts while providing a vehicle to show the realities of the time, including the draft, rationing, distrust of foreigners, and the way friends and family could turn on each other in the war. The fact that the romance was interspersed with the time apart, making us feel Nancy’s longing for her husband was a smart maneuver, as the reader felt Henri’s absence from the page keenly, even when Nancy did not actively long for her home.
Another thing that this narrative manages well is its antagonists. The larger villain is clear, Germany and the war as whole. It is what causes the action of the book, and what places Nancy. In the crucible that leads to the White Mouse. But in a novel like this, Hitler himself can’t be the primary antagonist, even if he does make a cameo of sorts. So we have our local villain in Marceline, and a Nazi officer by the name of Wolff. It provides a face and a name to the Nazi regime and the French sympathizers. Curiously, the antagonists divide Nancy into her romantic and intellectual selves, until Marceline crosses that line. Arguably, her character arc echoes Nancy’s in a compelling way and provides a depth to the book that some historical fiction lacks.
Ending, as always, with my favorite moments:
- Nancy seeing Henri for the first time and refusing his advances
- Nancy impulse buying her puppy
- The story of Nancy getting her first Journalism job
- Henri getting Grenadine for Nancy
- Nancy putting on lipstick to face Gaspard
- Nancy needing to be cut down off the tree
- Nancy learning to ride a bike
- The black wedding dress
- Nancy making Gaspard strip out of the Nazi uniforms and sending him home
- Nancy going through the obstacle course
Thanks for dropping in, just to reiterate, I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone who likes Peggy Carter to WW2 fiction.
Megan’s Musings 