Author: Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Year published: 2024
Category: YA fiction (historical)
Pages: 400 pages
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): UK, Poland
Summary: Remember, you are bound by the Official Secrets Act…
Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.
The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler’s invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother's disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues which unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?
Review: Ruta Sepetys is one of my favorite authors; she is so good at historical fiction! And Steve Sheinkin is excellent at YA nonfiction. To see all my Ruta Sepetys reviews, click this link and here to see my review of Sheinkin's Most Dangerous.
It is clear that Sheinkin's knack for amazing YA nonfiction was at play in this historical fiction. Everything I have read and seen about Bletchley was in this novel plus more. They have woven the facts and historical people into a well-told story so that the reader feels like they are learning a ton, reading about things that really happened, but also aren't reading a dry non-fiction. The historical note at the end of the novel is great (as we all know, I love a good After Word), explaining how all the bits of the novel are real and accurate.
Lizzie and Jakob are clever so it makes sense that they would be at Bletchley. Lizzie is a bit much some times (very precocious), but that serves a purpose. The larger cast of characters consists of real life people (think Alan Turing and his Enigma machine) as well as well-crafted fictional characters whose roles help move the story along, give insight into events, and round out the story.
Reading this book made me want to rewatch the movie Enigma.
Challenges for which this counts: none
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