Published 17th September 2020 by Michael Joseph UK/Penguin.
From the cover of the book:
Chicago, 1950.Rosalind Porter has always defied expectations - in her work as a physicist on the Manhattan Project to design the atomic bomb, and in her passionate love affair with co-worker, Thomas Weaver.
Five years after the end of both, her guilt over the results of her work and her heartbreak over Weaver are intertwined. She has almost succeeded in resigning herself to a more conventional life . .
Then Weaver gets back in touch. But so does the FBI.
Agent Charlie Szydlo wants Rosalind to spy on Weaver, whom the FBI suspects of selling nuclear secrets to Russia. As Rosalind's final assignment launches her on a dangerous mission to find the truth, she faces a heartbreaking choice . . .
Believe the man who taught her how to love? Or trust the man who her love might save?
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Atomic Love is a really interesting mix of spy thriller, love story and historical fiction novel set against the backdrop of the aftermath of World War II.
This is 1950. The war is over, but not everyone made it home from the battlefield, and many of those that did are scarred both inside and out by their experiences. Women have been consigned back to the kitchen and bedroom, in the wake of the return of their menfolk, and they are all trying to come to terms with a world in which the landscape has changed beyond their wildest imaginations - nuclear weapons now exist, and have been used in anger, and the Cold War has begun. Communism is the new big threat and the Government are on the watch for Russian spies everywhere, even within their own corridors of power.
In Chicago, we meet Rosalind Porter, who was one of the top scientists working on the Manhattan Project, which developed nuclear technology during the war, until her affair with Thomas Weaver derailed her life. She is now working in a store on the jewellery counter, a million miles away from the kind of life she once led, and longs to return to.
When Thomas Weaver reappears unexpectedly and wants to meet with Rosalind, she is not keen to reopen old wounds. However, it appears that Thomas is a man with a murky past - the FBI have him marked down as a person of interest and Rosalind is just the woman that Agent Charlie Szydlo needs to bring him down.
So begins a thrilling game of cat and mouse, undercover surveillance and menacing counter moves from shady foreign operatives with enough suspense to keep you teetering on the edge of your seat. But this is not all, because Rosalind is drawn to handsome, broken FBI Agent Szydlo, and is caught between her complicated love-hate feelings for Weaver and the chance of a real love with another, which gives us a very touching romantic element too.
Jennie Fields pulls off a quite impressive balancing act in this book with the themes she entwines with her story of love and espionage. I liked the way she brings in the role of women both at home and in the workplace, before and after the war, and gives us a little glimpse in the social changes ahead. I was also vey impressed by the way she balances Rosalind's feelings of guilt about being involved in a project that led to so many deaths against the experiences of Charlie when he was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp.
This is an intelligent and exciting book that is something of a page turner, with enough passion and heart to give your emotions a real work out as well as your heart rate. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Atomic Love is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Penguin Books for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review and inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
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