I’m fairly certain there is pond scum in my bra. Possibly my underwear as well. The thought of what I’ll find when I get to the shower makes me a little uneasy. (c) This book has it all – suspense, intrigue, romance, so much more! I absolutely love Hélène AKA Nancy. She is honest, brazen, gutsy, and persuasive. She speaks first and thinks later. This book is intense and addicting, I was so enthralled I could hardly bear to pull myself away from it. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. Code Name Hélène is a story about wartime heroine Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, she was born in New Zealand in 1912 and moved to Sydney, Australia when she was a toddler. Nancy left Australia at sixteen, America was her first stop, and then she traveled to France to work as a freelance journalist. Here, Nancy meets Henri Fiocca, he owns a ship building company in Marseilles and has a reputation for being a rich playboy. The descriptions of her trials and what she accomplished were mesmerizing and worthy of the highest note and regard.

Based on the thrilling real-life story of socialite spy Nancy Wake, comes the newest feat of historical fiction from the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia, featuring the astonishing woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands and went on to become one of the most decorated women in WWII. Are we really going to stand here and argue about the tangled nature of my family tree while my guests are left unattended?” (c) Did you read the Author’s Note before or after finishing the novel? How did it change your feelings about the novel? The story was too long. The first half was dull and boring. For me the story only caught on in the second half of the book This might sound a bit confusing but it works really well as we learn about the woman and what drive her to do the things she does.

Summary

It is 1936 and Nancy Wake is an intrepid Australian expat living in Paris who has bluffed her way into a reporting job for Hearst newspaper when she meets the wealthy French industrialist Henri Fiocca. No sooner does Henri sweep Nancy off her feet and convince her to become Mrs. Fiocca than the Germans invade France and she takes yet another name: a code name. For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. About the author:

Starred review) [P]lenty of fireworks and heroism as they converge to explain all. The author begs forgiveness in an informative afterword for all the drinking and swearing. Hey! No apologies necessary! [C]ompulsively readable… Lawhon's best book to date. Nancy is accused of using “profanity as a weapon” to gain her male colleagues’ respect. Do you think this is true?

No, before I read this book, I had no idea who Nancy Wake was, or anything about the woman behind the many aliases she had including The White Mouse, Madame André, and of course, Hélène. In fact, Lawhon begins her book with the line “I have gone by many names.” The fact that I wasn’t familiar with any of these names, despite her being one of the Gestapo’s most wanted spies, and the extraordinary number of awards heaped upon her after the war (literally across the globe), makes me ashamed, both for myself (as a lover of historical fiction, particularly biographical, women’s fiction from this era), and for the oversight of history not shouting her story out from the rooftops. Well, thank heavens for Ariel Lawhon, and for her writing her story so beautifully (or should I say, righting history). I will now take this opportunity to reiterate what Lawhon says as introduction to her author’s note at the end of the book: do NOT read those notes before you read the novel! PLEASE! I’m recommending Code Name Hélène for fans of fast-paced, suspenseful, and gritty historical fiction who are OK with intense situations and graphic descriptions and for readers who make it their mission to read everything Ariel Lawhon writes. Nancy is accused of using "profanity as a weapon" to gain her male colleagues’ respect. Do you think this is true? Crikey! I am so glad Ariel Lawhon wrote this little-known story of one of WWII's greatest military leaders, Australian war heroine Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, who not only led successful missions with the French Resistance, but who also killed a Nazi with her bare hands!

This fully animated portrait of Nancy Wake . . . will fascinate readers of World War II history and thrill fans of fierce, brash, independent women, alike.”A compulsively readable account of a little-known yet extraordinary historical figure—Lawhon’s best book to date. Nancy Grace Augusta Wake had several code names; Hélène was the one she used as a spy. During a large part of this novel, she is known as Madame Andrée, in charge of coordinating communications and vital drops of military paraphernalia including weapons from London, and assuming command of an army of French guerrilla soldiers as part of the French Resistance during WW11. She was fiery, intelligent, spirited, and had a right big vocabulary of curse words, which she employed liberally. Did I mention brave? She had that in spades. Originally from Australia, she left home when she was 16 and eventually landed in Paris, working for the Hearst newspaper, where she was never given a byline because she was female. While covering news stories about increasing violence against Jews, she developed a deep-seated hatred for the Nazis. The questions that follow are intended to enhance your group’s conversation of Code Name Hélène, Ariel Lawhon’s stunning novel based on the life of World War II heroine, Nancy Wake. Questions and Topics for Discussion What Nancy Wake did to aid the war effort against the Nazi war machine is nothing short of miraculous. Who said that the war front was no place for a woman? Well whoever said it Nancy Wake proved them wrong. In the 1930s, Wake was an Australian expat living in Paris and had brilliantly bluffed her way into a journalism gig stringing for the European branch of the Hearst Newspaper Group. Well before the start of the war, Wake documented the depravity and revolting cruelty of Adolf Hitler’s private militia known as the Brownshirts. On assignment in 1934 in Vienna’s Old Square, she and her photographer witnessed the paramilitary group publicly and viciously torturing an old Jewish shopkeeper, something the Brownshirts apparently liked to do on Fridays before the beginning of Shabbat.