Being sent away from her home and brother in England is the last thing Lizzie wants. Sure, she’s going to live with her very wealthy American grandmother in the USA, and they will be travelling in style on a large ship, but Lizzie wants adventure, not debutante balls and her bossy Gran.

So what if Hitler is getting closer every day? Lizzie isn’t the kind of girl that runs away, or hides from the world. She gives Gran’s assistant the slip and is back on UK soil before he has any idea what’s happened. Lizzie is fourteen, incredibly smart, and very dubious of reports that her mother is dead. Willa Novis is an independent woman who raised her children to be the same, and Lizzie is determined to find out the truth about her.

Lizzie’s brother Jakob, who is nineteen and a gifted mathematician is shocked to see his sister again, believing her to be out of the way. They used to be close, but now there is a war on, and he has important work to do, he doesn’t have time to babysit. Like everyone who meets Lizzie, he underestimates her sharp mind and intellect, but soon realises she is not only as clever as he, she is incredibly brave too.

Both become part of the Bletchley Park codebreaking teams. Jakob works the midnight shift, trying to crack the ever changing codes of the Germans, and Lizzie is a messenger between departments, all while investigating her mother’s disappearance.

Others are investigating too, and the clues are pointing to their mother being much more than just a US embassy employee. Could she really be an enemy of Britain?

Ruta Septys has done it again – portraying a part of World War II with a fictional novel based on real events, people and places. This time its the codebreaking teams all working under the Official Secrets Act, and relentlessly looking to crack the German forces’ coded messages.

The main characters are fictional, but modelled around many young mathematicians and brilliant minds who worked on this project. Lizzie is forthright with no filter in her exchanges with people and is fairly certain she will break the Secrets Act vow, as there is nothing better than some juicy tattle between friends. Her brother Jakob is more serious and less impulsive – until he has to be.

The worry of her mother’s true fate and personal motives helps Lizzie keep her tongue (sort of), and tension builds as Hitler’s troops and the war gets closer and closer to England’s shores and skies.

The more tense things get, the more distrust spreads among Bletchley. Who is actually who they say they are? Is Lizzie’s mum dead or alive, and will the RAF succumb to the German onslaught?

A perfect read for anyone wanting to experience inside the Bletchley Park Compound during World War II, all while investigating a mystery. There are many puzzles to unravel throughout the narrative too, bringing even more intrigue to readers.

Author – Ruta Sepetys

Age – 10+

(Out in NZ, Aust in Jan 2025)

(2025, Bloomsbury, War, Action, Courage, Humour, Sibling Rivalry, Family, Historical, Secret, Friendship, Alan Turing, Official Secrets Act, World War 2, WWII, England, Britain, Blitz, Bletchley Park, Codebreakers, Mathematicians, Puzzles, Codes, Enigma Machines)