The Girl from Bletchley Park, a novel by British writer Kathleen McGurl is a highly suspenseful and intriguing story toggling between 1942 and present day England.
Julia struggles to manage her own IT business and her home life. Her husband does little to ease the strain of keeping up a business and managing the household. He rarely helps and is obviously jealous that she makes more money than he does. No matter what she does, it doesn’t seem to be enough to satisfy him. Her two sons, 14 and 12, are willing to give a helping hand, but how can she manage to juggle her dual role and her husband’s constant demands?
Toggling back to 1942, three years into World War II, Pamala, Julia’s grandmother, defers her hard-won place at Oxford to become a codebreaker at Bletchley Park. She becomes a WREN (Women’s Royal Naval Service), the women’s branch of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy. Pamala meets two young men, both anxious to please her. But as her affection grows for one, even to the point of thinking of a future together, doubts begin to surface, followed by danger.
The Girl from Bletchley Park is an interesting story on several levels. Bletchley Park was once the top-secret home of the World War II codebreakers. They provided a valuable service breaking German military transmission codes, allowing Allied forces to take appropriate action. In the novel, Julia discovers her grandmother Pamala played an important role at Bletchley, making an interesting tie-in between the war years’ technology and Julia’s present day work with Information Technology.