This novel has been on my bucket list ever since I saw the movie by the same title with Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas.
Isaacs gives the reader a layered protagonist in Linda Voss. A legal secretary who’s all brains and sass and lusting after her boss. The setting is New York in 1940. Issac throws a lot of detail at you. But it’s easy enough to follow. The plot is slow. But it’s done with purpose. Issac wants you to get to know Linda so when the betrayals come, even though they’re expected, for me it was still a sucker punch. The last third of the novel has the most tension and the highest stakes. Linda gets to use all her acquired knowledge to assist the Allied cause by being a spy in Berlin. In the end, Linda gets what she wants and needs: to be loved and to love.
Definitely, Women’s Fiction was published before the monocular existed. This novel engaged my heart and mind. I almost wished there was an epilogue.
L.M. Elm, Historical Novelist 