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It seems very strange to me that I know so much about Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine etc. True, we have had a movie and a tv series about it, but about ten years ago, I don’t think I knew very much. Now thanks to various media, and obviously quite a few books it all feels very familiar and hard to imagine a time when it really was a secret. Even harder to imagine the hardships encountered by those many, many people working there; not to mention the abuse young, able bodied men encountered because ‘they weren’t in uniform’.

So I embraced The Rose Code because it was familiar, or so I thought. We were introduced to three women, Osla,Mab and Beth – all from different backgrounds and experiences. The familiar strategy of a moving timeline, 1940 – 1947, backwards and forwards was employed to hook us in to the various lives and developments, on the home front, their love lives and their working lives. All set against the anxieties in relation to the war, DDay and the budding romance between Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. I must admit I really did enjoy those parts that featured him – shame he could never be with the woman from Bletchley Park (Sorry, your majesty, it is only a story).

Of course, there has to be a traitor in the mix – and this was also managed very well, to such an extent that one of our women finds herself in an institution - so much for doing your duty!

No more to be said (there is so much to say) because it will spoil it. All I can say, is read it, it is brilliant and beautifully written.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

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This is the most absorbing book I've read for ages. It is set in a period I love, the period during and just after the Second World War. I must admit that I thought it might be very similar to The Bletchley Circle television series, which started well but 'lost the plot' after the first run, but The Rose Code is far more gripping, as it spends much of the novel building up a picture of the secret work done at Bletchley during the war through the lives and relationships of three women. Before the tension of the last third of the book, we really care about the characters, interspersed with tantalising but ominous glimpses of life after the war.

The thorough research about the period and the inner workings of code-breaking shone through - particularly the captivating insights into the processes invoved - and references to real characters add context and truth to the background. The final third of the book is well plotted and fast-paced, building up suspense to the very end. I will miss my rewarding visits with those three indomitable women. A riveting and fascinating read!

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A most interesting and enthralling story set in secret historical events centred on three girls over a period of 7 years. It starts in 1970 when two women receive a coded message begging for help from a former colleague locked in a mental sanitorium. How and why is a mystery that is unfolded in the story starting in 1939 when two young girls meet travelling to a mysterious place to take up a nebulous job. They arrive at Betchley Park and are sworn to secrecy, then assigned to The Government Code and Cypher School. While there they befriend a girl from their billet and get her to join too. They are three fascinating characters of different education and social backgrounds that makes an enticing story of their lives through the war years until a time when due to a personal dispute they parted with the one in the sanatorium. What happened thereafter provides an engrossing and exciting finale. A most satisfying read. Being intrigued as to how the book could have been written with such detail; research unearthed many personal accounts of the era that the author has made good use of; even to making an amalgamation of true people into the creation of the fictional three girls in the book. The author has done a brilliant job in creating a fascinating story.

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This fabulous story is set during WW2 in the secretive surroundings of Bletchley Park. Three very different intelligent young women are selected for German military decoding training. Osla, Mab and Beth become firm friends sharing lodgings at Beth’s family home and working in various decoding roles in BP. They form a social life and friendships with several others who are also working on decoding tasks. Following a tragic incident and a betrayal by a traitor in their midst the three friends become enemies and one of them is incarcerated in the Clock House asylum. The story switches from the war years to 1947. Days before the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip two of the women receive coded letters from the inpatient of the Clock House declaring innocence and asking for help to determine who the traitor is. The three must crack one more code. The Rose code.
The characters are developed into likeable people all with very different backgrounds. Plots and surprises, twists and turns to the very last page. I was sorry when it ended but so enjoyed learning about the history of Bletchley Park. Highly recommend! My thanks to Rachel Quin, HarperCollins and netgalley for the opportunity to read this superb book and for introducing me to another author. ‘The Huntress’ next!

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I loved ‘The Huntress’ so I was delighted to be offered the chance to read The Rose Code. I’ve always found the women code breakers of Bletchley Park fascinating and I love what Quinn has done here – taking their story and interweaving it with strands of friendship and betrayal, and a mole in the ranks. And then after the war, the women are brought back together to solve the very issue that tore their friendship apart. This was incredibly compulsive. I gobbled it down.

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I was really excited to read this one, so much so that it jumped the queue a little bit, but I absolutely loved it so no regrets there!

We are taken into the midst of the top secret WWII codebreaking activities of Bletchley Park with three women, Osla, Mab and Beth. They are all very different but all of them find themselves recruited to the mysterious war efforts hidden away in the countryside of Buckinghamshire, which they are prevented from talking about thanks to the official secrets act. Osla is an upper class society girl who is dating Prince Philip, hired for her translating skills; Mab is a tall and ferocious typist with ambitious dreams but humble beginnings; Beth a mouse of a girl underneath her mother’s thumb with no real experience of the world, but the cleverest of them all, she becomes one of the cryptanalysts breaking the codes. Together they forge friendships and book clubs, and get through the trials of the war, including keeping the secrecy of their work from everyone outside.

Simultaneously to reading the parts of the book set during the war, we periodically jump forwards in time to just before the royal wedding in 1947. It seems something has happened to forever break the friendship forged between the three girls, who are again leading remarkably different and separate lives; that is until coded letters from Beth cause the girls to have to revisit their war, with the security of the country at stake. Very well put together, though a bit on the long side I enjoyed it very much. I found the language of the era frankly annoying (topping, fizzing, etc) but it did give a real feel of the different time period the girls were living through, so it did work, annoying as it was!

My thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher Harper Collins for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

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A fictional novel based around the code-breakers at Bletchley. Three young women who are recruited to work there become close friends but the intensity of the work and the restraints of the Official Secrets Act combine to drive wedges between them. Also, to varying degrees, they suffer from their being a spy in their midst. The storyline is very engaging and moves along at a well nuanced pace which draws the reader in as clues are revealed and answers emerge. My only criticism, if this is indeed a fictional work, is why some of the characters are so clearly known to all of us as true life individuals. But I shall say no more as I don't wish to divulge too much. Personally I view Quinn has overstepped the boundary between fact and fiction by doing this and I found it confusing.
However this is an extremely enjoyable read and I strongly recommend it, albeit I limit it to a three star rating as the unnecessary name useage just got in the way.

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I loved this book and I'm sure it would make a great film. Three young women from different backgrounds are thrown together at Bletchley Park. during WW2 . All are doing different jobs, all which involve code breaking.
The three women are best of friends until an incident happens which tears the friendship apart forever..
A few years after the war one of the women has been done a great injustice and sends out a cry for help to the other two. Will they help even if they have not spoken with each other since their big fallout?
I liked how although this is a fiction story real life events were included .
One thing that did annoy me was the reference only to England in the war and the during the Royal wedding the Queen being of England and not the United Kingdom.

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Thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest opinion.
Have read a few of this author was delighted to read this early.
A fabulous story that intertwine war love loss Bletchley park what more could you want for a very intriguing read can highly recommend.

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The Rose Code.
Set in the 1940’s and modern times, this is about three young women who go to work at Bletchley Park as code breakers, to help decipher messages sent from the German Enigma machines.
Isla Kendall is a debutante, wealthy, and has a boyfriend, a certain Greek Prince, named Philip.
Mab is a determined woman, who worked at Debenhams department store, put herself through a secretarial course, and is on the hunt for a husband.
Bethan Finch, is shy and under the thumb of her religious overbearing mother. She has a ferocious knowledge of crosswords and the ability to see patterns in both words and shapes. All three girls are billeted together and form a strong loyal bond.
Chapters in this novel are in the form of a countdown to the Royal Wedding in 1947,and the 1940’s.
There is a traitor in Bletchley Park and information is being smuggled out. These events happen in the section that Bethan works in, and she is falsely accused of treason and sent to Clockwell Sanitorium mental hospital. She manages to get a message to her two friends and begs for their help in finding the traitor and gaining her release.
Osla sparkles upon the pages of this book. Bethan is loyal, tenacious and can be oblivious to the hurts and despair of her friends. Mab can be cruel and spiteful, but together, they are like the three Musketeers, they are determined to support and defend each other.
The ending is perfect and surprising. When you visit Bletchley Park, and push open the doors to the huts where so many secrets were discovered and kept safe, you can almost hear the whispers of the women and the clank of the machinery.
I won’t give away any more, you will have to read it!
A five star read. Thank you to Harper Collins for my copy, this is my honest review. I will leave a review to Goodreads and Amazon later.

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This was a mesmerising book. I loved the characters and the historical details and the topic was just fascinating. A well written book that I loved reading every spare moment I had.

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A very good book although a tad long, which I expect contains fact and fiction. It centres on 3 young women, who are employed at Bletchley Park and who bond whilst living together in accomodation near to their work. I can imagine all heads bent at their puzzle solving. They work hard, are tired and wrung out but remain friends until a chain reaction has deadly consequences and they fall out. that is the start of their troubles. This book was a pleasure to read. It examines the lives of the 3 of them and the people who are in their lives. It was also a riveting read. My Kindle had to be charged twice to read it all, but it kept me entertained for a weekend.

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Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, unfortunately I now have a book hangover......... This was an amazing read, absolutely fantastic, I had read one of the authors previous historical fiction books so I knew this one should be good but it exceeded all expectations.
Interesting history period and setting, great characters in a friendship, love, hate and mistrust. Two timelines, a royal wedding, WW2, spies and code breaking there was nothing not to like - well only that it ended, Highly recommend.

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There aren't enough words to capture how much I loved this book. I savoured reading it over days because I did not want this story to end. From the very beginning, I fell in love with the characters, Mab, Osla and Beth. I was hanging on to every word, every sentence and every chapter ending because I wanted to know what was going to happen. Quinn developed them in an admirable way, the flashbacks served as a welcome reminder of how much they had changed since the start of the story. The side characters were equally as exciting to read about, particularly Harry. I wanted nothing more than to drop in on a Mad Hatters meeting and talk to all of them, they practically jumped off the page with their raw, human flaws.

The plot itself was brilliant. There wasn't a dull moment, despite this novel being quite long for a historical fiction. Everything came alive from the mysteries of Bletchley Park to the horrors of the war. Everything felt so rich, this novel pulls you in from the start. Not at any point did I manage to predict what was going to happen next, not because anything was outlandish or unreasonable, but because Quinn managed to weave a story that detailed and well planned out that when it all fell into place I was shocked. The last 200 pages or so had me on the edge of my seat, desperate to read more but also not wanting this magnificent book to end.

I wish I could give this more than 5 stars, it's easily one of my top reads of the year. There's a part of me that wants to immediately reread it because of how stunning everything was. I know Quinn will be on my automatically buy list from now on, her writing and ability to create stories like this is breathtaking.

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Very enjoyable, light read. Well-paced, good plotting. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

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Absolutely loved this book, set against the backdrop of Bletchley Park, it is part war time story, part love story, part detective story. Cleverly weaving real people with fictional characters, it draws the reader in and leaves you rushing headlong through it. All in all, a throughly enjoyable read whilst learning more of the fascinating story of the code breakers of Bletchley

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This is a whacking great slab of novel, we follow the lives of three different women as they grow up in the chaos of world war 2. Mab, Osla and Beth are recruited to work at top secret Bletchley Park, code breaking, translating and filing. So much filing. Signing the Official Secrets Act they must not tell anyone what they do there or even share information in what their own branch of the park is doing with each other. Loose lips sink ships.
This novel is a sprawling beast and just soapy enough to not get bogged down in the horror of war. It’s split into two time lines. 1947 where an coded SOS message is sent from an insane asylum to two former friends with no guarantee of reply and other beginning in 1940 showing how these three became friends and ultimately betrayed each other in the hot house of Bletchley.
Mab’s story was my favourite because Mab is basically a badass and has fantastic eyebrows. The relationship between her and Francis is very finely drawn and I’m a sucker for a damaged hero. Doomed romance is totally my bag.
Osla’s story counters Mab’s nicely it gives off nice bit of glamour in the wet wool world of Bletchley.
Beth. Beth is the worst. I had no time for Beth at all. And she gets huge hot Harry and she never tells him she loves him. She’s awful.
I liked the Rose Code but felt it was poorly balanced, the first two years of the war are given a huge amount of space and the 1947 timeline is super rushed. I would have liked more time with Osla and initials guy and Mab and Mike. Even possibly Beth.

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This is an excellent read particularly if you are interested in WW2 and Bletchley Park. The plot centres around three intriguing characters all of whom are three dimensional and well drawn. There is pace and passion throughout. I really enjoyed the insights into Bletchley and loved the connections made at the end up to the present time. The commitment and determination of these shadowy figures in history do need to be acknowledged and admired by all of us who benefited from the considerable sacrifices they made. The moral dilemma of secrecy both during and after the war is portrayed in a sensitive and convincing way.
The author doesn’t shy away from emphasising that bad things do happen in war and also that no matter what important role people may have in the war effort that human feelings and errors are inescapable. When reading this book I experienced the full gamut of emotions and I was sorry to lose three women who felt like friends when the book ended.
The only (small) criticism I would make was that Beth’s actions and feelings in the asylum didn’t always feel totally convincing.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to any reader who enjoys strong characters, a well-written plot and a good splash of well-researched history.

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This book is based on careful research into its context of Bletchley Park and demonstrates the unique historical significance of this centre. In order to bring it all to life, characters are imposed to make it readable historical fiction. In particular, three women from very different backgrounds are the lead characters. Osla has a privileged background. Mab comes from a very different experience. These two meet when billeted with a household close to Bletchley. There is a daughter there who is controlled and abused by her mother. The other two get her a job with them and introduce her to a different world. Woven through the book is the story of Osla’s friendship with Philip Mountbatten which does not, of course, survive his eventual wedding. That theme does not sit well in the story and is not needed. Also, the author’s persistence in referring to Elizabeth as the future queen of England and similar inaccurate references to England when it should be
Britain are unfortunate. This book is long. Its particular attraction is the insights it offers into the experience of Bletchley.

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A tale about the Women who won the war. Beautifully descriptive and sharp paced narrative that will keep the reader enthralled from start to finish. If you have a general interest in history, WW2 or Bletchley Park then I highly recommend this novel. It's refreshing to see the war from the perspective of the women of Bletchley Park and the painstaking processes of solving the various codes to be used to an allied advantage.

Fantastic Work.

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