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After reading The Rose Code by Kate Quinn, I immediately purchased her latest book The Diamond Eye. I loved The Rose Code and wanted to learn more about a historical figure that I had not heard of.
In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son—but Hitler’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper—a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.
Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC—until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila’s past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.
Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever.
The Diamond Eye was not as exciting as The Rose Code. I am not sure if it was the writing style. The writing was beautiful but the set up was a bit different and it was hard to get into. I struggled with the book and even put it down a few times because I just couldn’t get into it.
Mila was an interesting character and I loved learning about her life. But you never felt a true connection to her like you did the characters in The Rose Code. I liked Mila’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt but you did not get that until towards the end of the book. I wish there had been more character interactions. I wanted to see her relationships with the other soldiers and nurse friend. I think because it was a lot of descriptions of how she worked as a sniper it made it very slow.
The last thirty-five percent of the book I enjoyed but that was the most fictitious portion of the book and made it more far fetched. I thickly through the end because by that point I did want to know what happened but it took a long time to get to that point.
Overall, The Diamond Eye was well written which I have come to expect from Kate Quinn but it was just lacking for me.
Have you read The Diamond Eye or any other of Kate Quinn’s books?
The Spinny Bookworm Mama 