The Diamond Eye

The Diamond Eye

by Kate Quinn

William Morrow, 2022. 448 pages. Historical Fiction.

In 1937, Mila Pavlichenko, a young mother and studious, aspiring historian, impulsively joins a sharp-shooting course and discovers an unexpected aptitude for marksmanship. With war raging across Europe, Pavlichenko enlists as a Soviet sniper. Though she initially faces derision from her male comrades, she racks up a kill count of over 300 in less than a year, earning the nickname “Lady Death.” As a result, the Soviet government recognizes her P.R. potential and plucks her from the battlefield for a goodwill mission to the United States. There, she must persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first lady, and the American public into opening a second front in Europe. 

Fans of historical fiction (even those who get tired of World War II fiction) are sure to enjoy The Diamond Eye. Author Kate Quinn has a knack for creating fully realized characters and vivid settings, and I sometimes found myself gasping out loud as I read. Quinn also tends to add thrilling, suspenseful climaxes to her books that depart from established history, which will delight some readers and annoy others (I’m somewhere in-between). Either way, the audiobook narration by Saskia Maarleveld adds a wonderful layer of realism to the story.

If you like The Diamond Eye, you might also like:

The Rose Code
by Kate Quinn

William Morrow, 2021. 626 pages. Historical Fiction.

1940: As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Osla puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Mab works the legendary codebreaking machines and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Beth's shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and she becomes one of the Park's few female cryptanalysts. 1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, the three women are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter-- the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum.

The Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah
St. Martin's Press, 2021. 464 pages. Historical Fiction.

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli-like so many of her neighbors-must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

The Summer Before the War

by Helen Simonson

Randomhouse, 2016. 479 pages. Historical Fiction.

The story of headstrong, independent Beatrice Nash and kind but stuffy surgeon-in-training Hugh Grange along with his formidable Aunt Agatha. Set during the summer before the outbreak of World War I.

SGR