Book Synopsis:
The stunning debut from the new name to watch in espionage thrillers. For fans of Charlotte Philby and The Bletchley Circle, this is perfect Sunday night drama.
LISBON, 1943: When her cover is blown, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay flees Paris. Pursued by the Gestapo, she makes her way to neutral Lisbon, where Europe’s elite rub shoulders with diplomats, businessmen, smugglers, and spies. There she receives new orders – and a new identity.
Posing as wealthy French widow Solange Verin, Elisabeth must infiltrate a German espionage ring targeting Allied ships, before more British servicemen are killed.
The closer Elisabeth comes to discovering the truth, the greater the risk grows. With a German officer watching her every step, it will take all of Elisabeth’s resourcefulness and determination to complete her mission.
But in a city where no one is who they claim to be, who can she trust?
City of Spies is available in ebook and paperbackback now. You can purchase your copy using the link below.
My Review:
As I might have mentioned once or twice I’m a huge fan of books set in World War 2 so this book instantly appealed to me. Stories about women working for the resistance are always really interesting and I find it incredible to think of these ordinary people doing such brave work.
The author does a great job of setting the scene in her book and her vivid descriptions helped me imagine what Lisbon was like during the war. It must have been an atmospheric though dangerous place to live and I liked how the author manages to reflect this with the short or incomplete sentences in the first part of this book. I felt this helped build the atmosphere and gave the story an edge to it as you became aware that everyone had secrets and no one could be trusted.
Elizabeth (codename Cecile) is a wonderful main character who I really enjoyed following throughout the book. She was such a brave, together character and I found I wanted to keep reading to find out what she gets up to. Some of the situations she finds herself in were very tense and I found myself reading faster and faster until she was out of danger. I always think it shows great skill to make a reader care about a character like that.
Overall I really enjoyed this interesting read which had plenty of twists and turns to keep me glued to the page. It was fascinating to learn more about wartime Lisbon, especially as it’s a setting I don’t think I’ve read much about before. I’m now very excited to read more from this author in the future.
Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Zaffre for my copy of this book via Netgalley.
About The Author:
Raised in New York, Mara Timon moved to the UK almost 20 years ago; and fell in love with London and the way it melds the old and the new. Growing up with one parent fascinated with literature and the other with history, she started writing from an early age, although it wasn’t until a programme on the BBC caught her interest, and one ‘what if’ led to another, that her first book began to take shape.
Over The Rainbow Blog 