This book is full of heart and gripped me throughout with its different setting. I liked the characters and could engage with them so would definitely recommend this book. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I was intrigued by the idea of this novel but the reality disappointed me slightly. The love triangle felt very cliched and predictable, and the characters were pretty one-note. The one thing that did excite me was the feminist angle of the plot, with Rosalind's unusual job as a scientist and the implications of that for her femininity and perceived expectations of finding a husband and starting a family. I also thought the Louisa subplot was done well. I just wish the writing and the rest of the plot had been slightly better!

1950s Chicago and the world is re-building after World War 2. America is in the grip of the Red Scare with increasing fears that communists are infiltrating the west. Rosalind Porter, a member of sales staff on the jewellery counter at a department store finds herself being followed by a tall, striking man to and from work. Feeling brave one day she confronts him, asking what exactly he wants. Taking her for a coffee he tells her that he is an FBI agent and wants to discuss her ex boyfriend, Thomas Weaver.

She met Thomas whilst working on the Manhattan Project, the research team which led to the making of the atomic bombs which ended the war. The FBI agent, Charlie Szydlo tells Rosalind that the Russians are making their own nuclear weapons and they have intelligence that somebody from America has been passing secrets to the enemy.

She and Thomas broke up suddenly shortly after the bombs were dropped on Japan and she hasn’t seen him since. He broke her heart, left her utterly bereft and broken but, recently he has been calling her. She is trying really hard to resist him, terrified of getting hurt again, but the FBI want her to meet with him and work with them as they suspect that he is the one passing plans to the enemy.

What follows is a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. Rosalind is a character who I really loved and I adored reading about her. Jennie Fields has written a compelling protagonist who is brave, tenacious and smart. Put in a difficult position she struggles with balancing her love for Thomas with her loyalty to her country.

Written from both the perspective of Rosalind and Charlie we are privy to both sides of the narrative. This multi-person narrative is written really well and I especially enjoyed getting to know Charlie whose experiences in the war as a Prisoner of War are both heartbreaking and devastating. Jennie Fields excels at writing likeable characters and I think that Charlie is one of those characters who will stay with me for a while.

I was gripped by this tale of espionage and suspense and, if I am honest I could have done with a bit more. The secondary plot of a love triangle between Rosalind, Thomas and Charlie veered a little heavily into Mills & Boons territory for me at times although it just held back from being too schmaltzy. The moments of threat were in contrast really thrilling and although I appreciated that Rosalind’s loyalties were being tested and there had to be an element of romance it felt like it eclipsed things a little.

However, I did particularly enjoy the exploration of the role of women in the 1950s. Rosalind is extremely bright and talented and her job at a department store is beneath her. Her sister has been a homemaker since she was young and apart from a brief foray into the world of work during the war she remains a wife and mother. So too does Charlie’s sister. All three are striving for more after experiencing a taste of working life in the 1940s. It was interesting to read about and it made me frustrated for the opportunities (or lack of) for woman at that time.

It also communicates the terror and fear of the time well. It feels high-stakes at times, even though we’re looking back with the benefit of hindsight and there were moments where I was tearing through the book because I just had to know what happened next.

Overall, Atomic Love is an enjoyable read about a part of history that I didn’t know lots about. It features some wonderful characters who will stay with me for a while and a plot, which, although slightly veers into the romantic, did hold my interest. Recommended.

What a cracking story; one which works well at so many levels. I haven’t read anything by this author, but I’ll certainly look for more books by her.

This is a complex tale which cleverly weaves a mix of fact with fiction. The love story at the heart of the book never dominates; it’s a framework for the events and the issues at the heart of the narrative. I was immediately taken to a different time and place. It’s beautifully written and for a book which features a lot of scientific fact about the Manhattan project and development of the atomic bomb, it’s incredibly readable. I like the central character and she lends an important voice to the role of women in science at a time when women were predominantly home makers and nothing else. The author manages to mix some complicated principles with moral and political issues in a way that’s totally relatable. This is historical fiction at its best and I really enjoyed this tense and gripping thriller.

Atomic Love is a really interesting mix of spy thriller, love story and historical fiction novel set against the backdrop of the aftermath of World War II.

This is 1950. The war is over, but not everyone made it home from the battlefield, and many of those that did are scarred both inside and out by their experiences. Women have been consigned back to the kitchen and bedroom, in the wake of the return of their menfolk, and they are all trying to come to terms with a world in which the landscape has changed beyond their wildest imaginations - nuclear weapons now exist, and have been used in anger, and the Cold War has begun. Communism is the new big threat and the Government are on the watch for Russian spies everywhere, even within their own corridors of power.

In Chicago, we meet Rosalind Porter, who was one of the top scientists working on the Manhattan Project, which developed nuclear technology during the war, until her affair with Thomas Weaver derailed her life. She is now working in a store on the jewellery counter, a million miles away from the kind of life she once led, and longs to return to.

When Thomas Weaver reappears unexpectedly and wants to meet with Rosalind, she is not keen to reopen old wounds. However, it appears that Thomas is a man with a murky past - the FBI have him marked down as a person of interest and Rosalind is just the woman that Agent Charlie Szydlo needs to bring him down.

So begins a thrilling game of cat and mouse, undercover surveillance and menacing counter moves from shady foreign operatives with enough suspense to keep you teetering on the edge of your seat. But this is not all, because Rosalind is drawn to handsome, broken FBI Agent Szydlo, and is caught between her complicated love-hate feelings for Weaver and the chance of a real love with another, which gives us a very touching romantic element too.

Jennie Fields pulls off a quite impressive balancing act in this book with the themes she entwines with her story of love and espionage. I liked the way she brings in the role of women both at home and in the workplace, before and after the war, and gives us a little glimpse in the social changes ahead. I was also vey impressed by the way she balances Rosalind's feelings of guilt about being involved in a project that led to so many deaths against the experiences of Charlie when he was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp.

This is an intelligent and exciting book that is something of a page turner, with enough passion and heart to give your emotions a real work out as well as your heart rate. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

More than a love story ,this book gripped me from the start . Rosalind worked on a team that designed the atomic bomb and had an affair with Thomas a co worker . Five years after the affair and her work as an atomic physicist has ended she is contacted by the FBI and asked to spy on Thomas when he contacts her again . The growing threat of Russia overshadows the story and lends it a sinister air. The characters particularly Rosalind are brilliantly drawn and you can imagine the story actually happened . A page turner

Set in the post war era it follows a female scientist as she, almost reluctantly, re- establishes a relationship with her one-time colleague. A tale of espionage and intrigue complicate dby more romance than you can shake a stick at.

The narrative has a natural rhythm and is easy to read. The characters are well drawn and there is a nice aside in the family relationships of its two main characters.

For me it's problems lie in the romantic associations between Louis, wheeler and Charlie. I find them frankly unbelievable in the context of what is happening and for me these parts of the story line reduced this book from a 4 or 4.5 star rating to one of 3. I feel the author might have been better served concentrating on the espionage and it's investigations.

At the same time this is the first book i have read from this author and I would not be averse to reading more.

Atomic Love is a completely captivating, gripping read which I really enjoyed. It is part love story, part thriller which worked really well.

Firstly I loved the main character Rolalind who was such a strong, clever lady who had given up a lot for her beliefs. I found it interesting to learn more about her previous job and how she had become disillusioned as her work on nuclear power wasn’t being used the way she expected. I felt sad that she had to hide her intelligence from people and how hard she had to fight to find herself. All the characters feelings are well described in the book so the reader gets an insight into their inner most feelings which made me feel more connected to them and care about them more.

The author’s brilliantly descriptions makes 1950 America come to life and I found it very interesting to learn how much everything had changed. Some of the sexist attitudes towards woman made my blood boil and I felt sorry for Roz having to try so hard to prove herself.

I thought this was a well written, twisty read which kept me guessing how things would end up, particularly about the love triangle that develops. All of the characters seemed to have different loyalties so it was hard to know who to trust which kept me firmly absorbing into the book. The ending was very dramatic and satisfying which I always enjoy.

Huge thanks to Sriya from Michael St Joseph for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book via Netgalley.

Wow! This story has everything, I loved the characters, the story and the time frame. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I have just gone over a bridge and got that lovely feeling where your heart seems to skip a beat. Set in Chicago 1950 the world is a very different place to be a modern woman. Rosalind had been part of the project that worked on the nuclear bomb that ended the great war but also a lot of innocent lives along with it. She not only struggled with those thoughts but also the betrayal of a co-worker that she had been madly in love with. Her career came crashing down and she had never really recovered from either.

Now Thomas Weaver had reappeared and wanted to pick up where it had all ended. Rosalind is approached by the FBI who encourage her to take that step and get evidence to support their theory that Weaver is a traitor. Oh, boy, was I hooked.

The author does an amazing job to recreate the 1950’s with all its prejudices and the roles that men and women had and rules they were expected to follow. Men were seen has been far more intelligent than women and some women were wise enough to let them think that if they were to get on.

The characters in the story are brought to life. I connected to Rosalind so quickly in the story and the terrible situation that she was sort of thrown into. She never really sees herself as anything special or loveable and yet there is something very pure about her in the way that she sees others. The story is exciting, there are constant danger and threat throughout, with moments that I held my breath both in what I felt would happen and the outcome.

The last few chapters are so very intense, punch in the air moments, me shouting yes! shocking, dangerous pages that were breathtaking and an unbelieve hold my breath ending. Just pure magic!

I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher for inviting me to read this e-book which I have reviewed honestly.

I really enjoyed this novel and relished my time with it. Rosalind is a great character who I was very invested in. I thought the era and the everyday lives, values, social conventions of the time were really well captured. The only reason this wasn't a 5* read for me is that the romance angle dominated over the issues which I expected would make this a more unusual story, and at times it was too schmaltzy for my taste.

Rosalind was sacked from her job as a physicist on the Manhattan Project, leaving the married man she loved and starting a new life in shop in Chicago.
Out of the blue she is approached by the FBI and asked to spy on her former lover. It is with conflicting emotions that she revisits her past.

I'm usually not the biggest fan on love triangles, but this one felt particularly well done. All three of the main characters were treated with some depth and sympathy, making the romance aspect feel more genuine and fully fleshed-out.
Rosalind, our female protagonist, is a refreshingly strong, intelligent woman dealing with her sense of guilt over being involved in the Manhattan project. I enjoyed the fact that she is both a brilliant scientist and an emotional, sensitive woman, proving that these two things do not have to be mutually exclusive.
The different points of view from which the novel is told (Rosalind and Charlie, the FBI agent) was interesting, but I would have liked to learn more from the point of view of Wheeler, the Communist spy and other love interest to learn more about his backstory and motives. We do find this information out at the end, but it feels rushed and doesn't bring about a true resolution and explanation for some of his actions. I believe it would have enriched the plot to understand more about his involvement with the Russian government and his gradual disenchantment with Communism.
Overall this is an enjoyable read with a likeable female protagonist and a gripping plot of espionage, betrayal, and desire.

This was a truly captivating read about female lives caught up in the space race. It was a thrilling, intriguing mystery, and perfect for any lover of cold war-era history and culture. On top of all this, it was also an engrossing romance - a must read!

In Jennie Fields’ Cold War novel Atomic Love, a once brilliant scientist, who was fired from the Manhattan Project, finds herself wrestling with intense and conflicting emotions when an ex-colleague and former lover suddenly comes back into her life and the FBI pressures her to get close to him again.

Rosalind Porter’s character was inspired by Leona Woods, one of the physicists who worked with Enrico Fermi, who also serves as Rosalind and Weaver’s boss on the Manhattan Project in Atomic Love. (Although it has to be said, Rosalind is very much the author’s creation and not designed to be read as a fictionalised version of Leona here.)

It’s refreshing to read about a protagonist who is an intelligent and capable woman. Rosalind not only holds her own in what was then an overly male-dominated world, let alone work environment, but also makes a tangible contribution to it. We only see this part of her life in flashback as she relives memories of that time but I came away with a real sense of her passion for physics, her brilliant mind and how she thrived in such a rarefied environment working alongside others at the cutting edge of science.

When we meet Rosalind, it’s 1950, five years since she was unceremoniously dumped by her lover and the Manhattan Project. Still reeling from the fallout in more ways than one, she’s drifting through life and far removed from her beloved world of science. She’s just managing to maintain her lakeshore apartment but that’s proving harder now that she’s working behind the jewellery counter of a Chicago department store.

It’s not easy to see Rosalind in this new life, knowing that she’s not only been forced to leave a stimulating and challenging career but also had a passionate love affair end abruptly. Rosalind seems so reduced and adrift now in comparison, although, as we discover, she’s not alone in feeling that way. I felt her sense of loss keenly, wanted to rail about the unfairness of it all on her behalf while also guiltily grateful to be of a later generation.

When her former colleague and lover suddenly comes back into her life, their renewed contact generates interest within the FBI, which suspects Weaver of betraying rather more than Rosalind’s heart. While she grapples with complex feelings of attraction and repulsion towards him (a nice nod to her background in physics), Rosalind also tries to balance how much of what she knows against what she tells her FBI handler, Agent Charlie Szydlo.

This already sensitive situation becomes increasingly fraught with tension, the more time they spend together and the better they get to know each other. And no matter how clever she is, Rosalind is a civilian in a high-stakes game of espionage with the outcome as dangerous and likely to spin out of control and obliterate her and everything around her, as the nuclear reactor she helped build when she witnessed it go critical for the first time.

I loved that there was more than a passing reference to Rosalind’s background in physics and involvement in experiments conducted with the atom. It works surprisingly well within this love story and tale of Cold War secrets and resonates, giving Atomic Love an extra frisson of excitement and danger. It adds to the impression that the characters—and the world they live in—are standing on the edge of a precipice. Things could combust and spiral out of control at any second with feelings running as high as the stakes involved and being every bit as taut.

Even if at times the romance feels slightly overblown, I liked that Rosalind operates on her own terms here, as much as the men in her life do. There’s a real push and pull between Rosalind, Weaver, and especially Charlie, and the way they react to, and interact with each other, their family members and, to a lesser extent, their colleagues. Again, Rosalind’s past work and her confused feelings about it seem to be reflected in the relationships within the book. Atomic Love not only shows how destructive and damaging a weapon it can be in the wrong hands but also how much more potential it has when harnessed as a positive force for good.

Atomic Love is a highly-charged love story and tale of intrigue set against the backdrop of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, and one I really enjoyed reading. I willed Rosalind on, hoping she could outwit and outlive the traitorous forces closing in around her and for her head and her heart to find the right way through all her confusion and find a way to heal.

This book wasn’t for me. While I loved the premise, the setting felt too made-for-tv-movie. It was well written and I loved some parts but unfortunately it felt like a bit of a slog at the start (it could have done with being a little faster at the beginning. Reminiscent of The Price of Salt in some ways (one of my favourite books) which perhaps is why I wanted a little more from the book.

The book does what is says in the title. Rosalind was a scientist working on the creation of the H bomb and was split her job through betrayal by her then partner Wheeler. We find her struggling to come to terms With the effects of the H bomb while coping with life working in a jewellery store. An FBI agent co opts her into meeting her ex partner Wheeler who they believe is a spy. She enters the world of spying and subterfuge. There are a few analogies along the way regarding splitting- atoms, lives, relationships. It is an historical romance with tinges of scientific background.
I enjoyed the book which had some elegant descriptive passages.

My thanks to Penguin/Michael Joseph U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Atomic Love’ by Jennie Fields in exchange for an honest review.

‘Atomic Love’ is set in Chicago, 1950. Since the end of the war Rosalind (Roz) Porter has suffered with guilt over her role as a physicist on the Manhattan Project to design the atomic bomb. Added to this her passionate love affair with her coworker Thomas Weaver had ended suddenly at the same time, upsetting her deeply.

She now lives a conventional life and works as a shopgirl. Then Weaver gets back in touch and so does F.B.I. agent Charlie Szydlo. He wants Rosalind to spy on Weaver, whom the FBI suspects of selling nuclear secrets to Russia.

This proved a fascinating spy novel that also highlights the post-war situation in which many women were expected to leave the workforce that they had entered to fill vacancies due to the war and return to their role of homemakers. While Rosalind was always determined to pursue a scientific path, she was still under pressure from her family to settle down.

Aside from the Cold War elements, this was also a quite moving love story as Rosalind confronts the betrayal of the past and seeks a path forward.

Definitely a well written thriller with strong characterisations and just the right balance between its romantic elements and the dangers presented by the situation that Rosalind finds herself thrown into.

I was interested to read that Fields had been inspired by the work of physicist Leona Woods, who had worked on the atomic bomb alongside Enrico Fermi as well as the first nuclear reactor in Chicago and built a boron trifluoride counter; all of which Rosalind does in the novel. The scientific elements of the novel were presented in an accessible way.

Overall, an engaging historical thriller with attention to period detail that created an immersive reading experience.

This one was a slow burner for me.

I liked the characters, very much. Charlie was my favorite,

I felt some things were unresolved.
I thought the ending was a bit weak.
The sex scenes were hot and I'm not sure I'm particularly looking for that in books to feel emotion..

I was intrigued by the premise and overall enjoyed the story.

1950s Chicago, Roz Porter is working in the antique jewelry section of a department store. Highly intelligent, she'd worked as a scientist on the Manhattan Project, but had been devastated when her work was used to create the nuclear bomb .and use it on Japan. Becoming depressed she's betrayed professionally and personally by British colleague Thomas Wheeler and forced to leave. Wheeler makes contact, seeking to rekindle their relationship. She's persuaded to acquiesce by FBI agent Charlie Szydlo, who believes Wheeler to be a spy...

A literary thriller with romance at its core.. There's a distinct 1950s American cadence. With rich description, it's easy to become immersed. Rooted in historical reality, we learn for example in graphic detail about Szydlo's experience in a Japanese POW camp.

Recommended as a romantic thriller with strong historical context.

There is nothing I didn’t love about this book, the science, the deceit and the romance made for a great overall read. I do think the book started a little bit slowly but 50 pages in I was hooked and couldn’t put the book down until it finished. If you want a book based on an extremely strong female lead and spies this one is for you.