The Woman Who Smashed Codes

Author: Jason Fagone
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2018
Pages: 464
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizabeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the US government, and he soon asked Elizabeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the "Adam and Eve" of the NSA, Elizabeth's story, a vital piece of women's history, incredibly has never been told.

In The Women Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation's espionage history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a convert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizabeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler's Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma - and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life. 

Review: I learned a lot reading this novel - about espionage, counter intelligence, and about a couple integral to American History, but of whom I had never heard. The author did a great job explaining a technical topic in a way that was accessible to a novice, and he kept it interesting.

The Lumbar Baron's Wife

Author: Lynn Austin
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, 2026
Pages: 368
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: After a devastating loss, Hannah Wagner never imagined she'd leave her comfortable home for the harsh, unfamiliar wilderness near Lake Michigan. But when Henry Abernathy, a friend of her husband, John - offers them a fresh start in a booming lumbar town, where John's skills as a doctor are sorely needed, Hannah reluctantly agrees.

Review: This was such good historical fiction. Sometimes I struggle with dual-timeline novels, but some authors have a talent for weaving the past and present and various characters together. Kate, Hannah, and Ashley spoke to me. What a novel.

Heart Life Music

Author: Kenny Chesney and Holly Gleason
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2025
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Heart Life Music shares the stories of a kid from small town East Tennessee with a dream fueled by sports and music around him. When high school football came to an end, he knew there must be something more. In college, Kenny Chesney found himself on a barstool with a guitar and an unexpected connection between people, life, and songs. His heart caught fire. With Nashville's vibrant creative scene, characters, legends, and places now long gone from the city he encountered in those early days, Chesney explores the quest to find himself as an artist and a man, as well as a sense of home anywhere there's an ocean. These are the stories of the unlikely game changer who became the sound of coming of age in the 21st century, made friends with his heroes, rocked stadiums, and founded a No Shoes Nation.

Review: I flew through this memoir. Kenny comes off as a normal, likeable guy. His "normal" changes after he becomes famous, but how could it not? I really liked his older music (in the 1990s) and have a lot of great memories tied to this songs.

The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club

Author: Martha Hall Kelly
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2025  
Pages: 336
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: 2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother's death as she travels to the storied island of Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She's come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper, Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous, but reclusive Vineyard painter. When Mari makes it to Mrs. Devereaux's stunning waterfront farm under the guise of taking a painting class with her, Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there. As the tale unfolds, Mari is shocked to learn that her relationship to the island runs deeper than she ever thought possible.

1942: The Smith girls - nineteen-year-old aspiring writer Cadence and sixteen-year-old war-obsessed Briar - are faced with the impossible task of holding their failing family farm together during World War II as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha's Vineyard. When Briar spots German U-boats lurking off the island's shores, and Cadence falls into an unlikely romance with a sworn enemy, their quiet lives are officially upended. In an attempt at normalcy, Cadence and her best friend, Bess, start a book club, which grows both in members and influence and they connect wit ha fabulous New York publisher who could make all of Cadence's dreams come true. But all that is put a risk by a mysterious man who washes ashore, and whispers of a spy in their midst. 

Review: I'm not typically a fan of "book-ish" novels, but I liked the cover, title, and premise of this one. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't love it either. The opening chapters had so much potential, but it never quite got off the ground. 

I like the bit of mystery surrounding the main character (in 2016) presence on the island. Then we switched to 1942 with two main characters, and did not revisit 2016 until after much of the story had been told. Three main characters were too many as well. I also struggle when character names seem out of touch or unlikely for the time - Briar and Cadence did not seem like women who would have lived in 1942. Of course anything is possible, but when you tell me a story is set in 1942, I need it to feel authentic. Young women in 1942 would have been born in the 1920s so names like Helen, Ruth, Frances, and even Mildred would have been more believable and not so jarring in the story.

The author's note at the end was the most interesting part of the novel.

Martha Hall Kelly Novels
Sunflower Sisters

Growing Up Amish

Author: Ira Wagler
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, 2011
Pages: 288
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: One fateful starless night, 17-year-old Ira Wagler got up a 2am, left a scribbled note under his pillow, packed all of this earthly belongings into a little black duffel bag, and walked away from his home in the Amish settlement of Bloomfield, Iowa. Now, in this heartwarming memoir, Ira paints a vivid portrait of Amish life - from his childhood days on the family farm, his Rumspringa rite of passage at age 16, to his ultimate decision to leave the Amish Church for good at age 26. Growing Up Amish is the true story of one man's quest to discover who he is and where he belongs. 

Review: I was looking for a short-ish audio book that I'd be able to finish this month and I saw this one on the library shelf. Growing up in western Pennsylvania, it's not uncommon to pass an Amish buggy on the road, or to drive by their farms in the countryside. I love American History and to me the Amish are a glimpse into our country's pioneering days. I find it fascinating. While I'm far less "judge-y" now, as a child I could not understand why anyone would choose to live that way long-term.

A couple of years ago my sister was researching our family tree and discovered that our paternal grandmother's ancestors were in the first group of 500 Swiss/Germans that traveled from Europe in the early 1700s and settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Ultimately, they settled permanently in Lancaster, which is still well-known and one of the largest contingents of Amish.

If I'm being honest, I was disappointed in this memoir. If the reader is hoping to find out what it's like to "grow up Amish," this isn't the book. This about Ira leaving the Amish not once, not twice, not even three times, but five.

Also, I wanted to know where Ira is today. Where he went and what he did after he left his Amish community for good. Did he marry, have children? 

You can feel the inner struggle, but his motivations and what, if any growth, he experienced when he was finally able to break-away. The potential was here, but the author needed to be vulnerable with his audience.

At Gettysburg

Author: Tillie Pierce Alleman

Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Arcadia Press, 2016 (first published in 1889)
Pages: 118
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: A touching and thrilling story of a young's girl experiences at the battle of Gettysburg.

Review: I was in the Gettysburg this area for a flag football tournament and had some down time. I toured The Shriver House, which was one of the best tours I've ever taken in Gettysburg. I've explored this town so extensively that I don't require a GPS to get around so to say this is a worthy tour means something.

Tillie Pierce was the 15 year old neighbor of the Shriver family and their stories are intertwined.

The tour guide strongly recommended At Gettysburg and it really was worth the read. Several of Tillie's memories and details have been substantiated by experts.

Capital Dames

Author: Cokie Roberts
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins, 2015
Pages: 512
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: With the outbreak of the Civil War, the small, social Southern town of Washington, D.C. found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States.

After the declaration of secession, many fascinating Southern women left the city, leaving their friends - such as Adele Cutts Douglas and Elizabeth Blair Lee - to grapple with questions of safety and sanitation as the capital was transformed into an immense Union army camp and later a hospital. With their husbands, brothers, and fathers marching off to war, either on the battlefield or in the halls of Congress, the women of Washington joined the cause as well. And more women went to the Capital City to enlist as nurses, supply organizers, relief workers, and journalists. Many risked their lives making munitions in a highly flammable arsenal, toiled at the Treasury Department printing greenbacks to finance the war, and plied their needlework skills at The Navy Yard - once the sole province of men - to sew canvas gunpowder bags for the troops.

Review: I wanted something different than what this ended up being, but there were several woman who were household names and prominent figures during the time of the Civil War that history has since forgotten. Details about the Civil War weren't knew since I read a lot of historical fiction and was a History major. However, for someone not as familiar, they might find those sections of the book interesting and helpful for context.

Maybe it's because I've gotten older or perhaps because of "the COVID years," but as I read or listen to historical novels, whether fiction or non-fiction, the impact of events that have long been a part of our conversation and psyche fester in my mind. I think about the real people who endured such hardships and I have a renewed appreciation for how long the Civil War lasted - people's lives and families completely altered and upended. Then, consider how the war changed cities themselves, in this case, Washington, D.C. However, Atlanta and Richmond were also changed. Families lost entire generations and children never existed because the men who would have been their fathers were casualties of war.

Had the Civil War not occurred, how different would things looked, or how long would it have taken to get where we are today? I do not mean the obvious outcomes such as freedom for Blacks, constitutional amendments etc, but rather, the further industrialization of the North, women entering the work force (although generally World War II is credited with women having more options to earn money and support their own independence), and an increase in taxes (the war had to paid for somehow). It's food for thought.