The Enigma Game
Ratings6
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings6
Average rating4.2
A stunning new historical novel from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Wein, featuring a beloved character from the award-winning Code Name Verity; for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. A German soldier risks his life to drop off the sought-after Enigma Machine to British Intelligence, hiding it in a pub in a small town in northeast Scotland, and unwittingly bringing together four very different people who decide to keep it to themselves. Louisa Adair, a young teen girl hired to look after the pub owner's elderly, German-born aunt, Jane Warner, finds it but doesn't report it. Flight-Lieutenant Jamie Beaufort-Stuart intercepts a signal but can't figure it out. Ellen McEwen, volunteer at the local airfield, acts as the go-between and messenger, after Louisa involves Jane in translating. The planes under Jamie's command seem charmed, as Jamie knows where exactly to go, while other squadrons suffer, and the four are loathe to give up the machine, even after Elisabeth Lind from British Intelligence arrives, even after the Germans start bombing the tiny town . . .
Featured Series
4 primary booksCode Name Verity is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2012 with contributions by Elizabeth Wein.
Reviews with the most likes.
A great read. Some of the characters were likeable but some were not! I really liked how Jane and Louisa get introduced into the story. Reading the story from the 3 main characters point of view was interesting. Wish Jane had her own but was always pretty much part of Louisa's story.
Man, I really wanted to love this one but it ended up feeling kinda sweaty to me? I love the Code Name Verity Cinematic Universe but for me to have three characters from the CNVCU independently end up in the same tiny town felt implausible, even though I was happy to see them. In her author's notes at the end Wein notes that some of what this story was based on involved a recovered piece of radar equipment from a German plane but she felt that writing about the radar equipment would require too much detail to explain its importance so she wrote it about an enigma machine instead, but to me it ended up feeling hard to swallow because the enigma machines were SO important that it was like......this is a lot for one 15-year-old girl to stumble upon?!
That SAID I still enjoyed this–Wein's research and eye for historical detail is sharp, and I really loved Louisa as a new main character, and I love a historical fiction that shows that people of color like...lived in England in WWII and can be in this kind of historical fiction story in addition to the usual Civil War and civil rights movement stories.
Elizabeth Wein does not disappoint. After I read Rose Under Fire, I saw that there was a new book coming to the series and counted the days until The Enigma Game's release. I scoured stores wanting to buy my copy in person when it finally came out. I savored reading as much as I could and while I hate that it's over now, I feel just the way that I did after reading [b:Code Name Verity 11925514 Code Name Verity Elizabeth Wein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388161911l/11925514.SY75.jpg 16885788] and [b:Rose Under Fire 17925639 Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity, #2) Elizabeth Wein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1378417575l/17925639.SX50.jpg 23859036]. This entire series has stuck with me like no other. All three of the protagonists had such different personalities that melded together marvelously. I'm most partial to Jamie, of course, from the previous books. I loved getting to know him better in this story. I'm in awe of how rich each character's backstory is without becoming a bunch of unnecessary facts. In the beginning, I wondered how the plot would all come together - how these characters would come together. I was in tears multiple times throughout the book, though I can't say why without having to mark this for spoilers. (I could easily carry on and on...)I hope there will be another addition to this series in the future, and maybe see some of these characters make a cameo?
