Martin's The Librarian Spy offers insight into a fascinating aspect of World War II espionage--the librarians (though not female... bit of license there) sent from the Library of Congress to collect publications abroad. Despite having read hundreds of WWII novels, I can't remember any of them that were set in Portugal for any part of the narrative. I really enjoyed that aspect of the novel. However, it is that most dreaded of all things: a dual narrative. So, on one hand, there is the American librarian and, on the other, the member of the French Resistance. The Resistance narrative was utterly generic. Entertaining, but generic. I asked a friend whether we had literally read that exact story before. We had not, apparently. But it was still not very well done in that sense. For me, the Portugal-set narrative redeemed the book and I ended up at 4 stars, because, honestly? I really liked it in spite of its flaws.

A young woman librarian from the Library of Congress is sent to Portugal to microfilm newspapers to send back to the US as Hitler's war sweeps across Europe. A young woman in France, afraid her husband has tired of her helps a stranger at her door and must go into hiding where she becomes a part of the Resistance. Readers who can't get enough stories about women doing their part during World War II will be happy to read this.

Review published on Goodreads, 3 September 2022:

I love World War II novels as well as those with a bookish bent, so THE LIBRARIAN SPY seemed right up my alley. Even though I'm not a huge fan of espionage stories, a librarian spy definitely sounded intriguing to me. Unfortunately, Ava—who is a librarian—really isn't a spy at all. The job she does in Portugal (collecting European periodicals for the U.S. in the hopes of finding crucial information about Nazi maneuvers) is important, but the truth is, it isn't all that exciting. That, I think is the biggest reason why I found her sections so slow and dull. She doesn't do or risk very much, meaning her story has little action or conflict to keep it interesting. Even her personal relationships lack sparks of any kind. Elaine is the opposite. As a member of the French Resistance, she risks a great deal to help run an underground, anti-Nazi newspaper. Still, even her sections don't get very exciting until about the last 1/4 of the novel. In addition, neither heroine is very well fleshed out. In fact, even though the women were operating in completely different countries doing entirely different work, I routinely confused the two because there's no distinction between their voices or personalities. Ava and Elaine might as well be the same person. Martin's prose doesn't help matters as it's pretty humdrum as well. I did finish this book, but not gonna lie, I put it down several times not intending to pick it back up again. Something compelled me to keep going, so there's that, I guess.

On the plus side, I did enjoy learning about Portugal during World War II as I haven't read any WWII books set there before. I also appreciate that this book stays very PG-13—if it wasn't for some violence, it could really be PG. Also, the characters are likable. Ava and Elaine are both compassionate, determined, and self-sacrificing. I just wish they had been more complex, unique, and memorable. In fact, that's what I wanted from this entire novel: more tension, more depth, more originality, more complexity, etc. As is, it's just an average read that does not stand out at all in a very saturated genre. Bummer.

The Librarian Spy is a riveting story of two determined, resilient women ready to do their part to change the course of the war - even if it is just for one family. Martin's impeccable research transports you to the gloriously evocative and neutral city of Lisbon and into occupied Lyon, where danger lurks around every corner. It's a moving and uplifting tale of risk and reward, love and loss and victory that is simply not to be missed.

Another wonderful WWII story from Ms. Martin. As with The Last Bookshop in London, she makes you feel like you are there with the characters as they go about their lives and trying to help in their own way with the war effort. Attention to detail is excellent as is her character development. Both Ava and Elaine were great examples of how women could help during these times. Great job!

This was such a fascinating dive into the intersection between archival studies and espionage.

This was a dual narration, with two separate, yet intertwined stories from two very different heroines. The first heroine, Elaine, is a member of the French Resistance whose husband disappears. She becomes more embroiled in helping those who are persecuted exist, and has many near escapes right under the nose of the Gestapo. The second heroine, Ava, is fascinated by books and dedicated to uncovering their secrets. She becomes a secret agent both to help the war effort and because her brother is serving.

Both heroines encounter challenges they never could have imagined, and Elaine especially watches her friends and comrades fall prey to the Nazi regime and struggles to find enough food to live on because of the rationed stock. Their fates become enmeshed in a plot twist I did not see coming.

Highly recommended for readers of the historical fiction of Marie Benedict, Kelly Bowen and Kate Quinn.

Madeline Martin has created two very magical characters in this historical fiction about two powerful women who impacted the trajectory of events during WWII. Ava is an American librarian who is tasked with gathering information in Lisbon that would assist the Allies. Elaine is a French housewife working with the Resistance fighting against the German Nazi occupation. The story is told in the voice of the two characters and from both their perspectives.

There's romance, intrigue, mystery, high emotional stakes, strong female protagonists, great pacing, and strong storytelling. A well-researched, great read for anyone who loves historical fiction.

From my blog: Always With a Book

It’s no secret that historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, and when you add in that mystery element, I love it even more. I was thrilled when Cindy from the Thoughts of a Page Podcast selected this one for her Patreon group to read early as I had already had my eye on it. Madeline Martin is a new-to-me author but I will definitely be going back and reading her other historical fiction novel…I just loved her writing!

There’s certainly no shortage of WWII books. But I always find that each one brings something new to the table – each one sheds light on something that hasn’t been explored before and that is certainly the case here. This is inspired by the true history of American library spies! What?!? And the book is set in Portugal. This might be the first WWII book I’ve read that is set there. I loved getting to see how a neutral country was like during this time.

The whole idea of American spies just fascinates me to no end – especially the fact that they used women in this role. Ava works for the Library of Congress as a librarian. She is sent to Portugal to scan all the newspapers she can get her hands on and send back anything that might be deemed worthy of helping with the war effort. It is through this work that leads her to a French contact, Elaine, who is part of the Resistance Movement. I loved that Elaine worked for an underground printing press, where they printed and distributed Resistance pamphlets during the war.

I love the use of the dual narrative in historical fiction, and it worked really well here. I loved moving back and forth between Ava and Elaine’s perspectives – both women are so brave and find themselves taking such big risks. I wouldn’t say I had a favorite character, per say, but rather there were times I was drawn more to one than the other. When the two finally connect, I loved how they communicated through coded messages. It added a layer of suspense to an already tense situation – would they be discovered before they were able to complete their plan?

Yes, the book does move a little slow at times, but I feel that there were moments that really needed to be built up for later parts to make sense. As much as I wanted to rush through this book to see when the two characters would finally connect, I also felt that this isn’t that type of book. There are some heavy moments scattered throughout and I felt the emotions very strongly. You feel the desperation and the fear in the characters, but you also feel hope and that is what I love. By the time I got to the end of this book, it had tugged at all my heartstrings, and is one that I know will be sitting with me for a while.

I read a lot of historical fiction and I think this might be one of my new favorites. I just loved it and it is definitely one I will be recommending to everyone!

A well written piece of historical fiction centered on the lives of two women during WWII. Ava Harper was an American, one of the librarians sent to Lisbon, Portugal to make sure books and newspaper information would be shared with the Allies for intelligence purposes. Ava feels for the many refugees trying to leave Lisbon for America. Helene Berlinger gives up her identity card to save a woman’s life, then joins the Resistance in Lyon. When Ava comes across Sarah Cohen, with her son, Noah, Ava tries to find a way to help them escape. Each woman bravely faces adversity, but also fight to save lives. I recommend this book. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Told in two narratives, The Librarian Spy is a perfect World War II spy novel. Elaine accidentally joins the Resistance after her husband is arrested in France. Ava is recruited to send underground newspapers to America from Portugal. Both women end up connected by helping a mother and child escape the Nazi camps. While the two stories are being told at the same time, it provided a really interesting insight on what was happening in Europe depending on where you lived. Great read. Highly recommended.

I loved this book! I actually ended up listening on audio, and found the narrator to be fantastic. Engaging storylines that beautifully came together to wrap up the novel. I can't wait to read more of Martin's books!!! Thank you for allowing me to review this book!

This book was riveting, fast paced and a good one from Madeline Martin. I love that her heroines are strong, smart and brave. This was a fantastic look at World War Two from another angle that other fiction writers have missed. Fresh, becoming and riveting. Highly recommend.

Watch my Amazon Live interview with Madeline here: https://amazon.com/live/broadcast/29341cb8-55b7-458b-b312-269de5e98116?tag=erinmbransco-20&linkCode=ilv&ref_=social

Fabulous books are hard to find, books that make you wish to spend more time with the characters and who make you long to find more stories that can do that. The Librarian Spy is just such a book.

It is April of 1943. War encompasses the world and Washington D.C. is a city of frantic energy, with all its denizens caught up in the battle to defeat Hitler – with the exception of Ava Harper who works in the sedate Rare Book Room at the Library of Congress. She loves her job and can’t ever imagine leaving it, but then she receives an unusual offer from the OSS: A chance to make a significant difference in the war by using her fluency in German and French in Lisbon. She will be microfilming periodicals that land in that metropolis from all over Europe, as well as checking the bookstores for any information regarding the Axis forces that can be obtained from volumes sold by the myriad of refugees that pour into the city on a daily basis. In spite of her fear of flying, she boards a plane within a week, determined to do her part to bring American soldiers home – especially her beloved brother.

Meanwhile in Lyon, a woman frantically searches for her husband. Hélène Bélanger’s fight with her beloved Joseph had been laden with vitriol, a by-product of the stress induced by the occupation of France. Hélène wants to join the resistance and fight for freedom; Joseph, a pacifist due to his experiences in WWI, wants her to stay calm and carry on. When he fails to come home that first night after their argument, she assumes he stayed at his friend Etienne’s apartment to give them both time to let their anger cool. But the longer Joseph is gone the more Hélène worries. Then a strange woman shows up at her doorstep, looking for a man named Pierre. Her arrival sets a chain of events in motion which lead to Hélène becoming Elaine Rousseau, a freedom fighter who mans a printing press for the members of the Resistance.

These two women are hundreds of miles apart, occupying two very different worlds. But when Ava begins to acquire copies of Combat, the paper Elaine publishes, they connect through coded messages, united in their desire to bring an end to the fighting and save as many lives as they can.

Immediately upon finishing this book, I searched for a copy of the author’s first WWII novel, The Last Bookshop in London, because this story is just so spectacular that I wanted to get a hold of anything similar the author has written. It’s hard to do anything besides gush when you read a book this good but I’ll try to explain what makes The Librarian Spy such a great read.

I loved both heroines. Elaine and Ava lead quiet, normal book-centric lives prior to the war but they rise to the occasion when called upon to do so. Elaine is racked with guilt for fighting with Joseph over his pacifism before he disappears from her life (all is explained but I’ll let readers discover that for themselves) and I found her despair both touching and realistic. Anyone who is married or in a long-term relationship knows that it is easy to let words get away from us and to wound those we least want to hurt. Elaine, with the help of Etienne, channels that experience into her fight with the enemy. The realistic, historically accurate accounts of what that battle looked like, the deprivations and persecution suffered during the occupation, and the emotional toll that doing this work caused are deeply moving. The author strikes that just right balance of giving sufficient detail to let the reader know what the people of France suffered through without being needlessly graphic.

Ava is an ordinary woman caught up in extraordinary circumstances. I liked that she isn’t a bold or adventurous person, but she moves across the world to do a dangerous job when it is asked of her. Ava is tenacious, with quiet courage and inner strength; she doesn’t back down from the opposition when she feels she is in the right and she has a strong moral code that ensures she almost always is. She’s also intelligent and resourceful. Technically Ava is a spy, and although her work involves simply gathering newspapers (those sold openly and some clandestine publications), it still has an element of danger to it. The Germans are as active in neutral Portugal as the Allies are, and the Nazis have a good relationship with the police in Lisbon. People get arrested for any kind of espionage activities, and on her first day in the area, Ava attracts the attention of a German operative. British agent James Mackinnon happens to be in the vicinity when that occurs and is able to warn Ava about the situation. He grows from ally to friend to more as the story progresses.

The heroes both keep deep, deadly secrets from their heroines that endanger them. James especially does something that surprised me – it seemed particularly underhanded, although I understood the necessity of it. I thought the author does a great job of explaining why they made the decisions they make and she convinced me they were acting with the best of intentions. Something I liked about both James and Joseph is that they’re brave without bravado; they do their work mostly in secret, happy to be rewarded by success rather than loud acknowledgment. They are also steady, dependable, and honorable. We learn of Joseph mostly through third-person accounts – he isn’t present in the story but what we see of him through those folks’ eyes endears him to us.

James and Ava have a very low-key romance and when the story ends they are taking definitive steps towards a future together, although they aren’t engaged or married. That seemed appropriate to me – their demanding work and the nature of the world they are inhabiting means that they really aren’t in a position to make quick decisions on important issues. Both of them are also very cautious people; it seemed natural to me that they would want to make sure theirs wasn’t just a wartime romance but something that would work in peacetime as well.

The setting here is fabulously handled and I learned so much, not just about Lisbon but about the time period and what ‘neutral’ countries actually looked like, especially how things worked for refugees. I would encourage you to read the author’s note to get a glimpse of the research Ms. Martin did that makes this text so deeply immersed in the time and place in which it happens.

The Librarian Spy is simply a terrific read. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys tales set in this time period.

While they may be in different countries, Ava and Elaine are both doing what they can to help amid the chaos of WWII. Ava has been brought from the Library of Congress in Washington DC to Lisbon to decode intercepted messages. While in Lyon, France, Elaine (formerly Helene) does what she can to aid the resistance. Their stories come together when Ava intercepts a message from Elaine about a mother and her young son who need rescuing. It is a beautifully written story, but you definitely should make sure to have a tissue box close by.

The Librarian Spy was just an okay read for me.

I expected a lot of intrigue and urgency, but this story has a languid pace with short bursts of intensity. Considering the book’s title, I was surprised at the absence of actual spying within the plot.

The two female main characters lacked complexities or strong personalities or… something. I just didn’t feel emotionally connected.

I expected an emotionally-charged and powerful read, as with this author’s prior books, but ultimately it’s not a story that will stick with me.

Content warnings: war, Nazis, poverty, starvation, torture, murder, loss of a spouse, concentration camps

Ava Harper is working at the Library of Congress when she is recruited to move to Lisbon and collect information from foreign publications about the war raging through Europe. Official German publications are propaganda and can't be relied upon for accurate accounts of the war. Ava speaks several languages and is the ideal recruit to help the war effort.

Elaine Roussea is a French woman living in Lyon. Her husband worked for the Resistance and has been taken by the Nazis. Elaine has also joined the resistance and helps print the contraband newspaper Combat.

Ava and Elaine are brought together when Elaine publishes a coded message in Combat to smuggle a Jewish mother and child out of France. Ava obtains the paper, decodes the message, and makes it her mission to help the Jewish family by bringing them to Portugal.

The two women's stories are in turns harrowing, hopeful, and heartbreaking. There is a sea of World War II fiction out there, and while this story seems original there are much better works of WWII fiction currently published.

Recommended if you can't get enough World War II fiction.

Representation: expats, refugees

The lives of two women intersect in 1941, when Ava, an American librarian sent to Lisbon to collect foreign newspapers and books to aid the war effort, discovers a coded message placed in a French resistance newspaper by Elaine, asking for help in getting a Jewish woman and her son to America. The story is told in alternating chapters contrasting Ava's experiences with the shadowy world of spies in neutral Portugal with the dangers of Elaine's life operating a clandestine printing press in Lyon. Elaine hides Sarah and Noah until she receives the coded message telling her to send them to Portugal guided by a British spy who has befriended Ava, while Ava prepares for their arrival and arranges for their visas and passage.

The entire mission is fraught with danger, but the women succeed. Life in Lisbon, seemingly safe on the surface but with many hidden dangers, contrasts strongly with the harsh conditions of the Nazi occupation of France, making for an exciting novel about two very brave and determined women.

This title fell flat for me, even though I usually love women-centered World War II books. I felt that the action didn't ramp up until the convergence of the two separate main characters toward the end of the book. Until then, it didn't hold my interest and I almost didn't finish. The characters felt one-dimensional for me, even though I liked that they were strong and heroic.

I had trouble getting into this book. For starters, the anachronisms regarding commercial flight and jet fuel really put me off so I doubted the accuracy of much of the book. I expect details as easy as that to research would be accurate. I nearly didn't move past the 15% mark of the book. I kept going, though, and found a decent story. I enjoyed both storylines, but would've liked more espionage and intrigue, based on the title. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for the early reader copy of 'The Librarian Spy' by Madeline Martin. I am employed with Indigo Books and Music - this review is my own. I did complete this book prior to its publication date and have since been hand selling at my store.

With an engaging storyline and sparkling characters, Madeline Martin transports us back to Portugal and France at the height of the Second World War to follow the stories of two heroic women who, through compassion and resilience, stand up to the Nazi regime and help Jewish families escape occupied France.

Departing from the now popular method of split timeline historical fiction, Martin instead spilts her narrative between two central characters. Ava is an American librarian who takes a job working in Portugal to photograph and microfilm newspapers and documents to send back to the U.S. Upon arriving in Lisbon she is struck by the plight of refugees waiting months to receive visas for sailings to Britain and the U.S. and sets out to help in any way she can. Meanwhile, in France, Elaine (whose husband has been taken by the Gestapo) joins the Resistance movement and takes up work at a printing press which aims to tell readers the truth about what is really happening in German occupied France.

A compelling and powerful story with well-developed and likeable characters, this is a superb work of historical fiction which I truly found a delight to read.