Whitcoulls recommends Kate Quinn and Kylie Moore-Gilbert

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. Author of The Alice Network which I loved. She has a real knack for identifying actual real women who’ve played critical roles in the world wars, and then writing a fictional account of them. This one is set during WW2 about an aspiring historian, Mila Pavlichenko, whose life in Kiev revolves around her young son – until Hitler's invasion of Russia changes everything and she discovers she has what it takes to be a great sniper. Amazing story – she was eventually shipped off to the US on a charm offensive when Russia needed more money for the war, and met Eleanor Roosevelt with whom she struck up a friendship.   The Uncaged Sky by Kylie Moore-Gilbert: The memoir of an Australian woman who was in Iran for an academic conference and arrested by the Revolutionary Guards and sentenced to ten years imprisonment in the notorious Evin prison. She ended up being there for just over 800 days – unimaginable. She spent months in filthy solitary confinement, was subjected to ongoing hours and hours of interrogation, and you could say had an utterly miserable time of it. On November 25, 2020, she was finally released in a high stakes three-nation prisoner swap deal orchestrated by the Australian government, laying bare the complex game of global politics in which she had become a valuable pawn. Joan Mackenzie joined Francesca Rudkin. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.