The Physicists’ Daughter by Mary Anna Evans
I am delighted today to provide a review for you at my blog stop for The Physicists’ Daughter by Mary Anna Evans on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour.
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The Physicists’ Daughter: A Novel
Historical Fiction
Poisoned Pen Press (June 7, 2022)
Paperback : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 1464215553
ISBN-13 : 978-1464215551
Digital ASIN : B09TGB4BVK
The Nazis are no match for the physicists’ daughter.
New Orleans, 1944
Sabotage. That’s the word on factory worker Justine Byrne’s mind as she is repeatedly called to weld machine parts that keep failing with no clear cause. Could someone inside the secretive Carbon Division be deliberately undermining the factory’s war efforts? Raised by her late parents to think logically, she also can’t help wondering just what the oddly shaped carbon gadgets she assembles day after day have to do with the boats the factory builds…
When a crane inexplicably crashes to the factory floor, leaving a woman dead, Justine can no longer ignore her nagging fear that German spies are at work within the building, trying to put the factory and its workers out of commission. Unable to trust anyone—not the charming men vying for her attention, not her unpleasant boss, and not even the women who work beside her—Justine draws on the legacy of her unconventional upbringing to keep her division running and protect her coworkers, her country, and herself from a war that is suddenly very close to home.
Justine Byrne was taught welding, trained by her parents. She knew things that most Americans could only dream of. She was given a job at Higgins Industries Carbon Division. She and the people in the division were making parts designed by others that they never saw assembled into anything. Justine’s parents had been killed because of the technology they helped develop.
Justine is young and lovely and two suitors are attempting to win her heart. One is a spy placed by Germany prior to WW II. The Higgins Plant was hidden in the bayous of southern Louisiana. There was an airfield next to the plant where the top-secret parts were made.
Supervisors at the plant were men with infirmities that kept them from being enlisted in the military. They were usually self-important oofs who lorded over everyone, particularly the women. They made life miserable for the better-looking girls.
Saboteurs were sent in by the Nazi’s to find out what was being made at the plant and also to slow or stop production. This was extremely unusual for a young lady during the war. Parts that were broken in the fabrication were quickly welded by her and production continued.
This tale of the valiant efforts by women hired in all war industries, showed the ability of women to do jobs formerly only held by men. The women were being paid more than they had ever been paid before, the same wage as a man doing the same work. Six, ten to twelve-hour days, left them only Sundays to rest and prepare for the following week. The book is very well written and I could not put it down! 4.5 stars – CE Williams
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About The Author: Mary Anna Evans is the author of The Physicists’ Daughter, the first in her series of WWII-era historical suspense novels featuring Rosie-the-Riveter-turned-codebreaker Justine Byrne. Her thirteen Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries have received recognition including the Benjamin Franklin Award, a Will Rogers Medallion Award Gold Medal, the Oklahoma Book Award, and three Florida Book Awards bronze medals. She is an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma, where she teaches fiction and nonfiction writing, including mystery and suspense writing. Her work has appeared in publications including Plots with Guns, The Atlantic, Florida Heat Wave, Dallas Morning News, and The Louisville Review. Her scholarship on crime fiction, which centers on Agatha Christie’s evolving approach over her long career to the ways women experienced justice in the twentieth century, has appeared in the Bloomsbury Handbook to Agatha Christie (coming September 22, 2022), which she co-edited, and in Clues: A Journal of Detection. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Camden, and she is a licensed Professional Engineer. She is at work on the second Justine Byrne novel, The Physicists’ Enigma.
Website: https://maryannaevans.com/
Twitter: @maryannaevans
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaryAnnaEvansAuthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maryannaevans/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mary-anna-evans
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12395.Mary_Anna_Evans
Purchase Links:
Bookshop IndieBound Barnes and Noble Amazon Booksamillion Nook Kindle Kobo
Thank you for visiting my stop on the tour! 
Thanks to Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this cozy mystery!
©2022 CE Williams – V Williams 
Rosepoint Publishing 
The story sounds very intriguing.
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Thank you, it certainly did get hubby’s interest.
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