The Rose Code

by Kate Quinn

She’d grown up fifth of six children all crammed together in this cramped flat that smelled of fried onions and regret, a toilet that had to be shared with two other families—she’d be damned if she’d ever be ashamed of it, but she’d be doubly damned if it was enough.

A Kate Quinn heroine always wants something fiercely—my women characters always have big, unapolgetic goals. Mab's goal is a better life than the one she was born into, and she refuses to be badgered into accepting less. Osla, born with the kind of life and privilege Mab envies, has the goal of being taken seriously for her brains and skills, not just her looks and family. Beth, suppressed and emotionally abused almost from birth, isn't allowed to have any goals outside serving her family—but one little taste of Bletchley Park and its work, and the goal blooms in her: to use her brain, unabashedly and proudly, for the work it was born to do. These three women may be very different, but they WANT with all their hearts.