Thank you Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for the gifted book!
by: Karin Tanabe
narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
rating: liked
I really had to sit with this book after I finished it and think about how I wanted to rate it. I read it very quickly and was very absorbed in the story, but at the end of the day it was a let down. I just feel like nothing happened. This was marketed as a historical fiction spy thriller. But not one part of this book felt thrilling. It is a 1950s historical fiction novel in which the main character happens to be a low level undercover courier. It is a decently long audio (over 13 hours) and when I finished I was like I need 4 more hours so something big can happen. Katharina is a 1950s housewife to a doctor and the heir to a shipping fortune. She is not enjoying being the mother to two small children and she feels stifled. I had to reflect and see if my annoyance with her character choices were me being annoyed with the 1950s or me being annoyed with her. And I decided she was the problem. She takes no agency in her own life. As a woman who had a great career and personality before marriage and children she allows herself to become a doormat. And when she starts taking agency and regaining her sense of self, she hides her new found confidence from the people closest to her. Which in turn allows her to make some questionable decisions that she justifies because she is getting what she wants.
I will say though that the narration by Jennifer Jill Araya was excellent and I am looking forward to hearing her narrate a book again in the future. She shifted between characters and accents so well.
Content Warning: Murder, Racism
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