Thank you to NetGalley and Embla Books for an advanced digital copy of this book.
From the onset, this story appealed to me as it checks all of the boxes for books I like to immerse myself in… World War II historical fiction, strong female protagonist, and mystery and suspense. Unfortunately for me, this book was the equivalent of picking up a beautiful piece of fruit, and biting into it only to discover it’s spoiled. While I truly wanted to love this book, it missed the mark for me in so many places.
To be fair, I’ll start with what I did like. I have read a great deal of WWII fiction, and have never read a book focused on Bletchley Park, so I found it interesting to learn about Britain’s counterintelligence hub for the war. The storyline, while somewhat predictable, was intriguing enough that it kept me engaged and reading along to see how it all played out.
While the plot was engaging, the main character, Hana, was not. I had a hard time growing to like her, and often found her words and actions to be somewhat childish. Because of this, I found her hard to relate to, but even more so, it was not believable for me that she would be recruited or succeed as a master codebreaker/translator.
My other major issue with this book was in the prose. There was a distinct lack of descriptive passages which typically spark the reader’s senses and let them feel that they are part of what is happening. In The Codebreaker’s Daughter, there was much more tell than show, so it read less like a novel and more like an article. Additionally, the dialogue often felt overly modern for the time period, causing a disconnect for me that kept pulling my focus away from the story.
Reading is entirely subjective, and for the right person, I’m sure this book would be highly entertaining. For me, however, it fell short of my expectations, and ultimately will not be on my list of favorites.