Title: Secret Lives
Author: Anna Jensen
Date: 2022
Publisher: Anna Jensen
ISBN: 978-0-6897-3769-0
Quote: "Alice wondered what she had let herself in for this time."
She had won a crossword puzzle contest. In the early twentieth century British crossword puzzle clues sometimes became a separate art form with elaborate codes, references, and puns; no simple "Knot" for TIE or "Poet Edgar" for POE. Winners of contests to solve these puzzles had displayed special talents and qualified for a special miitary draft, in the 1940s, to become military cryptographers. Alice has just been drafted.
Fast-forward to the 1990s, when young Rosie notices for the first time that her grandparents may not last forever, and becomes interested in their stories. What tales old grandmother Alice can tell, now that it's no longer, literally, as much as her life's worth to tell them...
This is the frame for the kind of novel I might enjoy but, unfortunately, all Anna Jensen has chosen to send out free of charge are three chapters, so I can't tell you whether the novel is as good as its frame. But it is a Christian novel; the characters quote from the Bible and pray about their problems.
No writer gets five or even four stars for sending out an "excerpt" or a "sample." If you're interested in a novel based on what Anna Jensen was able to learn about the cryptographers, though, you might want to read this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment