The Diamond Eye
By: Kate Quinn
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: William Morrow and Company
Pages: 435
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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.
First Impressions
Another one of my auto-read authors. Kate Quinn is one of the queens of historical fiction, especially stories centered around female heroes. I didn’t know this book was coming out until right before the publication date. I was excited to see this one was a little shorter than the Rose Code and was extremely excited to read it.
What I thought
This might be my favorite book of the year so far. I flew through this one.
Mila is a Russian sniper in World War II with a body count of over 300. She’s also a single mother, graduate student, and in hear early to mid 20s. When she racks up more kills she finally gets recognized and is sent to America as a part of Russian propaganda to gain more support from the Americans towards the end of WWII.
I flew through this book even though it was over 400 pages. I spent two solid days just reading and not putting it down. Mila’s character was fascinating and seeing her grow from a helpless young mother barely over 20 dealing with her mean not so quite ex-husband to a fierce independent woman who starts to put herself first and changes the way you view snipers.
The story alternates between Mila’s past, right before the war began, and when she is at the student delegation in the US in 1942. The past storyline moves until it catches up to when Mila is in America in 1942 and then continues with this timeline through the final quarter of the story. I will admit that the past and watching Mila rise through the ranks was a little more enjoyable to me than when she was in America. Not in a way that had me wanting to read through the American storyline quickly to get back to the past, but just slightly more interesting to me.
Quinn does such an amazing job finding and highlighting these female heroes of war. I love how she includes pictures at the end of the story and then explains in the author’s note what bits she changed. This story just immediately sucked me in and I wish that we had more real accounts from Mila that weren’t influenced by Russian propaganda. I think this may have become my 2nd favorite of Quinn’s novels. I don’t know if anything will top The Alice Network, but I definitely enjoyed these more than The Rose Code, which I still loved but was a bit long for my tastes.