Author: Kate Quinn
Published: Hardcover, 435 pages
Format: March 29th 2022 by William Morrow & Company
Genre: Historical Fiction
First Sentence: I was not a solider yet. We were not at war yet. I could not conceive of taking a life yet. I was just a mother, twenty-one and terrified.
Blurb: In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.
Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC--until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila's past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.
Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever. (Goodreads)
My Opinion: Kate Quinn mesmerizes me with her writing. Picking up The Diamond Eye with the express intention of reading a page or two, and three hours later, I came up for air. The writing flows with ease -- passion, anger, desire, pain -- and you are engrossed in Mila’s life and the horrible decisions she must make for herself and her son.
The author’s notes explain where fact meets fiction and how a research librarian, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (Lady Nightingale / Lady Death), become history’s deadliest female sniper during WWII. With a bit of finagling, Kate Quinn was able to bring a fascinating character to life. Could history be repeating itself? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the real-life Lyudmila and the fictional Mila collide in a fascinating account that will stay with the reader.
Blurb: In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.
Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC--until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila's past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.
Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever. (Goodreads)
My Opinion: Kate Quinn mesmerizes me with her writing. Picking up The Diamond Eye with the express intention of reading a page or two, and three hours later, I came up for air. The writing flows with ease -- passion, anger, desire, pain -- and you are engrossed in Mila’s life and the horrible decisions she must make for herself and her son.
The author’s notes explain where fact meets fiction and how a research librarian, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (Lady Nightingale / Lady Death), become history’s deadliest female sniper during WWII. With a bit of finagling, Kate Quinn was able to bring a fascinating character to life. Could history be repeating itself? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the real-life Lyudmila and the fictional Mila collide in a fascinating account that will stay with the reader.
No comments:
Post a Comment