Very well written and researched. A part of history that should be written of more often. I loved the writing and the story was enthralling

This was an enjoyable story with some of my favorite elements: flawed characters, historical timeframe and European setting. It is an interesting story told in a combination of “present” tense in the late forties and flashbacks to the early forties in the life of the main characters. Though the characters had some depth, the story felt rushed to resolutions. I would have liked a little more interactions within the lives of Evelyn’s parents, best friend Sally and mysterious girl crush Julia. I did like the way the author ended the story with Evelyn finding her true path…or at least the start of it.

Honestly, I can't think of anything to say except it was fine. It had all the elements of historical fiction that I typically love - especially female spies - but I feel like I never really got into the story or felt like I was rooting for any of the characters.

I think this was a fine book, but that there were definitely authors books with similar stories/focuses that are more well-done.

(3.5) This book was different from my normal reads, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I truly thought that it was an interesting story and I actually learned some things that I had previously been unaware of such as the phoney war and the events leading up to. I thought Evelyn was a really interesting character and I thought she was brilliant. I also liked the personal pull she had when a friend of hers was mixed up in one of her assignments as a spy and she was forced to make the decision between friendship and country. I will say that although I thought Evelyn was brilliant she was a much harder character to like compared to Julia or even sally. But I did still think that as a whole this story was super interesting, and pushed me outside of my normal realm which I really enjoyed.

I don't typically read espionage or spy books but I do love historial fiction, so I wasn't too sure about this one but wanted to give it a try and I ended up really liking it. One aspect of it that I found really interesting is that it let me inside the mind of a spy and how one must think in order to be a good one. That's what makes most books more interesting than movies is we get to see deeper into the characters' thoughts.

The MC is a young woman named Evelyn Varley and she is very intelligent and goes to a prestigous boarding school on a scholarship, unlike most of the other girls who attend and are from wealthy families. One of the wealthy girls that Evelyn becomes friends with is Sally Wesley so she spends a lot of time with Sally's family and they end up liking Evelyn a lot. That prompts Mr. Wesley to help Evelyn out with getting a job. I was wowed to find out that at such a young age, Evelyn ends up being snagged up/recruited to work for MI5 which would obviously take a great deal of stealth and intelligence because she'd have to insinuate herself into the lives of fascists and Nazis and due to her history she's quite capable of adapting to her new role. Leading a double life would definitely be a difficult thing to accomplish, so watching how she manages and the changes that occur within her was very interesting. There were also some twists and I always love that.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Ecco Publishing for an eARC of this book. My opinion is honest and mine alone.
#AnUnlikelySpy #NetGalley

A quite interesting tale written about an unassuming young woman who does some spy work for MI5 during the Phoney War (the time leading up to the UK’s involvement in WWII).

Evelyn grows up poor, but smart, and wins a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school where she ends up rooming with a rich girl (Sally) who is also a bit of a misfit. They become fast friends. Evelyn is welcomed into Sally's family and distances herself from her low class parents. She reads German at school and becomes fluent which makes her a shoo-in when Sally's father recommends her for the War Office. She is recruited to spy on Nazi sympathizers and gets some good information. She seems to enjoy the work too much and gets involved in things that she is told to back away from and eventually gets disgraced because of it.

Unfortunately, I couldn't warm up to Evelyn. She seemed cold and did some odd things that I found unrelatable; perhaps that made her a good spy. Also, I was confused at how Evelyn's actions caused Sally's family's downfall (the cause of the major conflict of the story). It didn't seem that it would follow from the events of the story. For these reasons,I gave the book a rating of three out of five. More insight into Evelyn's thinking, more description of how Sally and her family were wronged, and how that caused their bankruptcy would have increased the score.

I'm a huge fan of historical fiction and was thoroughly impressed by Starford's writing. It held my interest from the very first chapter through till the end, and I was always excited to dive back into the story each time I picked the book up. An Unlikely Spy is a slow burn character study that I recommend reading!

I loved how I learned something new in this story. In this book main character Evelyn Varley is partly based on MI5 Counterintelligence Agent, Joan Miller. Her assignments, although fictionalized here, are a fascinating piece of British WWII history.

Lastly, there are a couple of twists in this story at the end that I didn't see coming. It was a 'Wow" moment for me. Another reason I was impressed by this author's writing ability.

I recommend this debut book to those who enjoy character studies and stories with under-lying meaning. I love how when I think about this story, I keep discovering little bits and pieces of newness.

I love a good spy book and An Unlikely Spy was a great one. This book was different because it has the usual intrigue, secrets, danger, and uncertainty found in most spy novels. What makes this book stand out is that it focuses on how a person must think and function in order to be a spy. It is a study into the psychological mind set that the main character must process and continue on as to be effective. If one slips up, it is literally a life and death situation for herself, but others, too. Incredible to really absorb this all. Rebecca Stanford does an excellent job in her writing to bring this out.

The book begins with Evelyn Varley, who lives in a working class neighborhood of Lewes. She has always been an intelligent girl and gets a scholarship to an elite boarding school. Evelyn realizes early on that she will need to change herself in order to fit in with these types of girls. They come from money and power. So, Evelyn does. She becomes very good friends with Sally Wesley and is often at her family’s estate. Her father Hugh especially likes Evelyn. Evelyn and Sally go on to study at Oxford. Mr. Wesley helps Evelyn secure a job at the War Office. This is during World War II. Evelyn is excited to do something different and stay in London.

This is when life changes dramatically for Evelyn. She is recruited to work for MI5, a counter intelligence agency where Evelyn will work to infiltrate fascists and Nazi sympathizers. Evelyn is a natural fit, as she has been playing a role of herself for a long time. She knows how to be the person others expect her to be. She doesn’t see her family or talk of her lower level in society. She can easily adapt her personality with a subtle shift; being a hater of Jews, and Passionate about needing a change that the other side of the war is fighting for. Evelyn likes being on her own and wants to continue working. She does not seem to realize the heavy cost this takes from her. She is never honestly her true self anymore. She doesn’t have deep romantic relationships. It’s just too hard and she has many secrets. She holds secrets even to herself.

So, there are twists and turns that happen. I did not see much of them coming. How much will Evelyn sacrifice and can she maintain friendships with both Fascist Sympathizers and her regular friends. Will that even be possible? At some point, she is asked to make difficult choices about her life. Can she change back to herself, when she has been acting for so long? This is a psychological glimpse into her mind and it is hard to fathom how she decides.

So, this was an excellent book and I highly recommend it, especially for women who read a lot of WWII books.

Thank you NetGalley, Rebecca Stafford, and Ecco Publishing for an ARC of this book. I really enjoyed reading it and appreciate receiving a copy.

I liked this book, but I had a hard time remembering what year the chapter had skipped back and forth too. This made it hard at times to figure out if it was current times or something that had happened to her in the past.

I liked the characters and didn't see the end of the book coming. Overall, this was a good historical fiction book and it was a quick read.

"An Unlikely Spy" by Rebecca Starford is a masterpiece. It successfully couples historical description and detail with a compelling, cerebral spy story. The heroine is deep and richly developed. Other characters are both intriguing and beguiling. The books is paced like a Le Carre novel but steeped with detail, like a James Michner book about the MI5. I highly recommend this book. You can find my full and far more thorough review on Book Browse (bookbrowse.com).

Courtesy of Netgalley I received the ARC of An Unlikely Spy, a debut novel by Rebecca Starford. Telling the story of a young woman recruited by MI5 to infiltrate a Nazi sympathizer spy ring in WWII, this novel is based on real people and events. Evelyn has always strived to better her social standing while in school. After being recruited for espionage, she adopts the persona of a spy and becomes lost in the role, to unfortunate circumstances. This is a fascinating character evolution!

It was interesting and held my interest. It included many dynamics dealing with other people's impression of her. Her parents loved her but could not understand the career choice. The book did not involve the war much but interpersonal relationships.

3.5 stars for me. It was a little hard for me to get into this one. It wasn’t for me, but there’s a good story line and I loved Evelyn! Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Women Exploited: An Unlikely Spy by Rebecca Starford,
Beneath the calm, well-ordered setting of pre-war England so beautifully described by Rebecca Starford, lies a world of judgement, deceit, and questionable morals: the world of espionage, and unquestionably a man’s world.
Beginning with the title, An Unlikely Spy (HarperCollins, 2021) everything about Starford’s novel is unexpected. Rather than a tale of action, adventure, and intrigue, this is a story of psychology and ethics. It is a rare look into the psychological and moral development of a spy.
Stories about espionage rarely show the agent’s childhood. When I asked Starford why she had included her character’s childhood in a story about spies, she said, “Evelyn’s childhood is so crucial to how she develops into an adult primed for espionage that it seemed necessary for it to be in there. Plus childhood is a space that continually fascinates me, especially those formative years of early adolescence.”
“The novel explores the ways Evelyn shapes herself into the kind of person she believes will succeed in life, as opposed to her ‘real self’, which is a young woman from humble origins. This person is adept at ingratiating herself with others, in particular the other girls at school and later university, and this proves crucial to her later recruitment to MI5. She can become a different person very easily.”
Through Evelyn’s character we are not only shown the social development of a person capable of assuming different identities, necessary in espionage work, but also her moral development. In the course of the novel, Evelyn reaches a point where she must decide whether to betray her country and the principles she believes in, or a close friend whom she has always admired. For her male colleagues, Vincent, a Jewish codebreaker and Bennett White, her supervisor and handler, this does not pose a moral dilemma. According to Starford, “For better or worse, patriotism means something different to us in 2021. Those lines of loyalty and betrayal aren’t as clearly defined as they once were. But back in the 1930s, there was more simplicity to this question of allegiance, as well as the way society was structured and operated.”
Starford’s understanding of the ethics of that time period are accurate. At the time the story takes place, human moral development was understood mainly through the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, a developmental psychologist in the 1870s. His studies demonstrated a progression through six stages of mortal development, from obedience to avoid punishment, through conforming to societal mores and laws, to principled conscience. Moral development, according to Kohlberg and the thinking at that time, is a progression towards independent, objective, and rational moral choices based on principles.
In the 1980s another developmental psychologist, Carol Gilligan, noted that Kohlberg’s studies involved only boys and young men. She repeated her experiments involving girls, and her results were very different. According to her studies, females make moral decisions based on how their choices will affect their relationships with other people, and a recognition of responsibility for others.
Her colleague Victor’s story of the murder of his family by the Nazi’s on Kristallnacht forces Evelyn to recognize the evil inherent in Nazi racism. As --- told me, Evelyn “is not an especially ideological person – she has a vague sense of what is right and wrong, but she’s never been energised by politics. This changes through the course of the novel when she is confronted with the realities of fascism and race hatred both in the UK and across Europe, and how dangerous apathy towards this can be.” Evelyn is not so much motivated by the principle of anti-racism as by her relationship to Vincent and her empathy for his sorrow at the loss of his family.
Two other incidents occur which show Evelyn’s moral growth, a growth of empathy and compassion rather than of objective principles. Because of her German language skills, she is asked to interrogate a young captured spy. He tells her he has been forced into spying or else his family will be murdered. Evelyn promises he won’t be harmed if he tells her what he knows. Her supervisors are delighted she got the information but ignore her promise of clemency without a moment’s thought.
The second incident is when she reads the transcript of an interrogation of Dunlin, a lonely woman who was co-opted to pass on communiques to a man who pretended to love her. “Are they all like this, these assets? Women exploited?” Evelyn asks. Her male supervisor answers brusquely, “Generally”.
Concerning these incidents, Starford said, “Evelyn can see the human frailty in these people that her colleagues can’t. …It gives her greater humanity and compassion, which means she can elicit more information from the suspects. But it does signal a kind of foreshadowing about how she will come to grapple with the nuances of her investigations, which proves very dangerous later in the novel.”
The same growth in empathy and moral understanding that makes Evelyn opposed to Nazi racism because of Victor, enables her to see that Dunlop and the young German-speaking spy are also victims, to whom she is able to relate. Her male colleagues, and the society she lives in, do not see this as moral growth but as moral weakness, an inability to maintain objective principles.
Evelyn’s social development as a young girl trying to fit in with her wealthy schoolmates “concentrated her efforts on building herself into someone she believes can blend in with people of influence” according to Starford, which makes her an excellent spy. But her moral growth as a young woman toward empathy and relationship proves very dangerous for her as a spy. Not only is she dealing with a very different set of moral imperatives than her male colleagues, and supervisor, but she is also dealing with the inherent injustice toward women of her time period. Evelyn has to fight for every opportunity to participate in the work of M15 – the British Intelligence Service – beyond her initial role as a secretary, where both her skills and intelligence are underutilized.
“I have tried to make Evelyn’s work as realistic as possible. The bureaucratic element of MI5 was important to her evolution in the organisation and her growing desire to do more – and the way she needs to push her male superiors to be more fully utilised by the service,” says Starford.
“Women were certainly treated differently in MI5 to men (as they were treated differently across all professions) – and in many ways this hasn’t changed today. So much historical fiction is uncovering lost, forgotten or buried stories. Many women like Evelyn were written out of the historical narrative of WWII because it’s considered to be a largely masculine history.”

NOTE: this article will first appear in the historical Novel Society Review in August. After it appears there, I will paste it on Amazon and Goodreads with a note that it first appeared on the HNS Review. - JAM

The first chapter started off with me wanting to hear more, but by the third chapter I was bored and not interested in what was coming next. This was probably on me, not the author. Thank you for the chance to read the book ahead of time. I will try again at a later date.

I love Historical Fiction and find the best reward of reading this genre is when I come across a story where I learn something new. In this book main character Evelyn Varley is partly based on MI5 Counterintelligence Agent, Joan Miller. Her assignments, although fictionalized here, are a fascinating piece of British WWII history. Great historical fiction. As always I thank NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An Unlikely Spy kept my interest. I didn't want it to end. The protagonist kept the book moving and the reveal was surprising.

This one absolutely sucked me in.
I read very little fiction about spies. I don't know, I'm not too much in to espionage or political reading - I like to get swept up in a story I enjoyed. So color me surprised when I found this spy novel not only enjoyable, but hard to put down!

Evelyn was a great character. She's not perfect, not by a long shot, so I loved learning about how she got pulled in to MI5 and what her work entailed. I liked her complicated friendships and the time line that showed the then and now. It was all so well crafted and well written, I really loved this one!

<i>A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.</i>

This thought-provoking historical fiction novel, set in London during WWII, will have the reader wondering if their decisions would have been the same as that of the young protagonist, Evelyn. Evelyn learns to imitate the persona of others in order to be accepted by them after she is given a scholarship to an elite university whose students are from a higher social class than her own. This skill, and her ability to speak and understand German, eventually lead to her being recruited by MI5 for a job in counterintelligence, working to infiltrate a group of Nazi sympathizers. The story is mostly told in the past, but there are flash forwards to post war time that provide insight into the toll that Evelyn's past took on her future. The writer weaves central themes of betrayal, anti-Semitism, deception, and finding a sense of belonging throughout the story. Young Evelyn learns that people are not always what they seem! Can one stay loyal to both friends and country? Many thanks to the author, Echo/Harper Collins and NewGalley for the advanced reading copy.

This one pulled it out in the end. For most of the book, I was thinking "eh, this is alright, not really grabbing me." But the last quarter of the book really upped the stakes and I was both surprised and satisfied to see how it ended.

Evelyn is not a particularly likable character. However, she isn't unlikable either. She's just Evelyn. I think that's why it made her the perfect spy - she's nondescript and doesn't leave much of an impact. Therefore, she can fly under the radar since no one seems to take much notice of her.

This was both the good thing and bad thing about this book. On one hand, it was interesting to imagine how this might have been in real life and how a woman like Evelyn would have lived her life after espionage. On the other hand, I didn't care too much about her so I wasn't really invested in what did or didn't happen to her. Oddly enough, I was much more into Julia and wanted an epilogue just about her.

Overall, this book was alright. It held my interest for the most part but it didn't suck me in and I don't think it's one I'll think about much afterward.