Karin Tanabe's latest novel is set in 1954 New York City, during the Red Scare, and follows an "overeducated housewife" turned FBI informant. Katharina seems to have it all, but deep down she misses her old life as a translator for the UN. ⁠⁠
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Tanabe describes the gilded cage that Katharina is trapped in really well: not only does she have a Master's degree she isn't using, she is under immense pressure from her husband Tom to be the perfect wife and mother. The unrealistic expectations put on women are nothing new, but I was genuinely angry at how Tom kept criticizing Katharina. When she is approached by an FBI agent because someone she knew in college is a suspected prominent communist, Katharina jumps at the opportunity to become an informant.⁠⁠
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Soon, she really begins to miss her old life, and soon questions what she had gotten herself into by marrying and having children. Tanabe includes short vignettes of Katharina's past showing how her relationship with Tom seemed perfect at first and then began to crumble, and I actually ended up feeling sorry for her.⁠⁠
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Something that Tanabe discusses really well is the society culture of the era where people's every action, especially women's, were microanalyzed. Katharina has to deal with some speculation from her neighbors about the relationships she's forged with others as a result of her FBI informant job, which I thought was realistic. ⁠⁠
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Overall, I thought that this was a well-done spy story but also a look into the expectations placed on women and why they're harmful.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. I listened to the audiobook of A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe. It was narrated by Jennifer Jill Araya. The narration was performed flawlessly as the narrator easily transitioned between the roles of the various characters in the book. The story of A Woman of Intelligence took place in the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s primarily in New York City. References to the McCarthy hearings and the support for returning soldiers who had served their country during the Second World War were important to the plot of this book. During that time period, women were expected to marry, have babies and stay at home and keep house for their husbands. It was rare to hear of women who continued to work once they started a family. Women, during those years, were seen as one dimensional. Their role as “mother” became their sole and most important responsibility. As mothers, women were meant to loose their own identity and desires and exclusively serve the needs of their children. This time period proved to be extremely difficult for some women. This became Katharina Edgeworth’s life once she gave birth to two active and demanding baby boys merely a little more than a year apart.

Katharina’s husband, Tom, was a brilliant and very well respected pediatric surgeon at Lennox Hill hospital. The only problem was that Tom was at the hospital more than he was at home. Tom did not believe in nannies or babysitters for his children. It wasn’t that they could not afford to have one. It was because he believed that there was no substitute for a child’s mother. Rina, as she liked be called, had no outlets. Her whole existence was her children. Before she became a mother, Rina was an accomplished translator for the United Nations. She loved her job but agreed to give it up when her first son was born. As a full time mother, Rina was beginning to resent the fact that she had to give up her career. She loved her children but she was beginning to question herself and her life and at the same time feel guilty for doing so. Then, one day, Rina was approached by a man from the FBI. He wanted Rina to become an informant for them. There was a man Rina had known from her college days that the FBI had been watching. Jacob Gornev and Rina had been lovers during graduate school. He was living in New York and was a Soviet spy. Could this be the answer Rina was searching for? Could she once again find relevance in her life by becoming an informant for the FBI?

A woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe was partly a spy story and partly a love story. It captured an era where women had a hard time “choosing themselves” over their children. The author, Karin Tanabe admitted to borrowing part of the premise for this book on her own experience at motherhood. She had had two children eighteen months apart and therefore experienced first hand the challenges that presented. During the 1950’s, postpartum depression was unheard of. No one recognized the symptoms or addressed it. Mothers were just expected to cope and carry on with their day to day responsibilities with smiles on their faces. I feel that the time period that this book depicted was well researched and represented within the book. It was an enjoyable book that I would recommend.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for affording me this opportunity to listen to the audiobook of A Woman of Intelligence through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe is a perfect fit for readers who crave a thrilling and absorbing historical fiction novel that explores the complexities of motherhood, the intrigue of espionage, and the struggles of women navigating the constraints of societal expectations during the tumultuous post-war era of 1950s New York City.

Women of the 50’s are expected to marry, have children and forget about their former careers. Katarina loved her interpreter’s job at the UN, but was forced by her husband, who is a brilliant surgeon, to make motherhood her career. The FBI contacts Katarina to help with a covert operation against the Soviet Union. This opportunity will change her life in many ways she could never have imagined.

This one was kind of a slow burn for me. I know that women in the 1950s were not as ferocious as they are today, but there was just something off in the characterization where Katharina just gave up so much for marriage and her child when it wasn't in her original development as a character.

The Cold War aspect and spying parts were interesting and unique, but I don't necessarily feel like I earned anything new or it doesn't add any sort of new narrative to the historical-fiction Cold War era genre. This one just fell a little flat for me on all sorts of literary elements.

I always enjoy historical fiction but this book was from an oft overlooked time period, the 1950s. Katharina is rich and well educated. The wife of an NYC pediatrician she is unable to use her language skills until the FBI approaches her to help with spying. I enjoyed the glamour as well as the intrigue and recommend this book. I thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I honestly didn’t love this one! It was well written but I didn’t find myself connecting with it. I would be interested to read more from this author

I appreciate the ability to send a rating and review for this title. I am an absolute sucker for a spy novel.

A WOMAN OF INTELLIGENCE

WWII is over, the Cold War is on. Katharina Edgeworth, Reni, a young career woman in NYC, has married an upstanding pediatric orthopedist and has two young sons. She’s having a very hard time adjusting to motherhood, missing her former sense of self worth as an interpreter at the UN. As was the norm in the 1950s, her husband expects her to be content raising her children in an atmosphere of wealth and security. But she needs more.

And an opportunity presents itself in the form of assisting the US government with gathering information on potential communist spies, one of which is a former lover from college.

Through a variety of experiences, Reni is thrust into a world with people she finds interesting, both mentally and physically stimulating. How she integrates these new feelings into her unfulfilled world is the focus of this novel.

There are a lot of interesting concepts presented, and I would’ve liked to have seen them more developed, a little more depth. More focus on the political intrigue aspect of the book would have been more satisfying for me also.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Karin Tanabe, and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rina Edgeworth married well and produced two healthy sons for the family. Her renown pediatric surgeon husband's career and income (in addition to a wad of family money) ensure Rina an extremely comfortable life. She knows she should be happy and content, but her life is not enough. She misses her translator job at the United Nations; it gave her purpose and fulfillment that being a stay-at-home mother does not bring. Taking place in the 1950's, Rina also has to fight societal norms - which state that women of a certain age must be very happy and content being a housewife and stay-at-home mother. Just as she was at her lowest point of unhappiness, the FBI reached out to her about a college lover who is a leader in communist organizations. Rina jumps at the chance to help the FBI and find a more personally fulfilling role in her life.

I loved the plot and the idea for this book. One main theme in this book is how hard it is to be a stay-at-home parent and how hard the job of a parent is. I was expecting more action, and some scenes in the book had a lot of holes in them. Rina is not an experienced agent and has never even considered being an agent, yet she is trusted with a huge job. I find it implausible that she did not have some close brushes with death even after those experienced in the counter-intelligence meet their end. I do like the setting; there are far too few books set in this time period.

Katharina Edgeworth lives an enviable life married to Dr. Tom Edgeworth, the head of Pediatric Surgery of Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She's a woman with a lofty name and position in a thriving World Class metropolis. But what is enviable to many, isn't often fully understood. All of that wealth, security and position in life comes with burdens and other trappings that make the reality much less desirable than one might otherwise assume. Katharina, a multi-lingual career woman with an exciting job at the UN is full of ambition and vigor when she trades all that in for her life as Mrs. Tom Edgeworth.

After having two very rambunctious kids, she has turned into not only just an extension of her husband, but a bird in a gilded cage, so to speak. Soon, she realizes that here clipped wings are destroying her. This is during the early 1950s where such a life was quite common for women of her background, but things were changing. Meanwhile, as she begins to find herself in the throws of a nervous breakdown, she is recruited by the FBI to help infiltrate the local Communist Party run by a former lover from her days at Columbia University. This is all during the height of the anti-Communist McCarthy hearings when political sensitivities were at their height.

This is a fascinating story of a woman caught in the midst of a changing world while her world is falling apart. The book reads easily without getting bogged down. The writing doesn't get hung up in theoretical discussions on Communism versus Capitalism. Only just enough to understand some of the important characters and provide the reading with a little mise en scene. The story crosses many facets of life that one might have gotten caught up with during that time period. Things were changing, and so was Katharina. It reads true to the times and is fitting for what a woman of her background and status might experience.

I found this to be a very good book that held my interest from beginning to end. If anything, I want more. There are several subplots, all converging into one interesting story that should especially appeal to women readers who want more than your typical Romance novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for a complementary copy of the eBook in exchange for a fair and honest review.

i loved this book. I could see myself and every other intelligent woman in many aspects of this story. A woman who had a career and gave it up to raise children, while living in an upper middle class marriage. She has everything that one could want except time for herself not just to live but to develop intellectually. She takes on a temporary job which she hides from her husband and sees it through to the end. She is a 'struck' woman; a woman who does not know how to express her own needs to her husband who appears to be quite controlling. Not much is written about the spouse so it is unfair to draw conclusions. One learns only her perspective, and cannot feel anything but sorrow for her. I am left with the question: Are we (women) trapped by our own making, or by our situations? Are women to be given freedom or to demand freedom. I will leave that to the reader to contemplate.

I appreciate the question around which A Woman of Intelligence by Karen Tanabe is based. What compromise does a woman make between independence and a career and home and family? The reality is that the discussion continues even today and definitely more so in the context of women than men. Although the character and story was not for me, this conversation is what I take away from this book.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2022/10/a-woman-of-intelligence.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Katharina Edgeworth leads an enviable life: her surgeon husband is handsome and rich, her Fifth Avenue apartment is luxe, her two young boys are darling. But she longs to return to her exciting work at the United Nations, where she served as a translator before she quit to make her new husband happy. Then one day an FBI agent appears, asking her to serve her country by insinuating herself into the life of an ex-boyfriend who he alleges is a Russian spy. Rina is desperate to escape her gilded cage—and so she says yes. I wasn't particularly interested in the character's internal struggle but enjoyed the depictions of the early Cold War climate of the mid-1950s.

It's 1954 and all of the men are back home from the war. Rina is feeling constrained by her roles of wife and stay at home mom when she's asked to be an informant for the FBI.

I love historical fiction novels that have that intelligence aspect, but I didn't think A Woman of Intelligence did the best job of really focusing on that or carrying the intelligence element through the story. It's overshadowed by an underdeveloped romance and flat characters.

I listened to A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe through the @libby.app. Audiobooks make everything better, including boring household chores.

It’s 1954 in NYC and Katharina Edgeworth has a Fifth Avenue address, two healthy young sons, and a famous pediatric surgeon who is also heir to a shipping fortune. Life should be perfect, but it’s not. Katharina is struggling with the overwhelm of motherhood (it isn’t labeled, but feels like postpartum depression) and she misses her work as a translator for the United Nations. So when she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant, Katharina seizes the opportunity. A man from her past has become a high-level Soviet spy, but no one has been able to infiltrate his circle.

This was a fascinating story–a look into Cold-War America and the balances and pressures of motherhood. I felt so much for Katharina, even when I felt frustrated by her decisions. This is a woman who is struggling without any help. You wouldn’t think that would be possible with all her resources, but it certainly was. Well done on audio, too!

In 1954 post-war New York City Katharina Edgeworth is a socialite with every advantage a woman could desire. A handsome, wealthy husband who saves children’s lives on a daily basis as a pediatric surgeon; two beautiful sons and a fancy apartment on Fifth Avenue. But Rina lived another life. She has a graduate degree in languages from Colombia University, speaking four fluently and was deeply passionate about her career at the United Nations. Before motherhood took over every detail of her life, Rina had friends, she traveled and enjoyed an exhilarating social life. Most women would be grateful in her position but all she feels is lost, lonely and regretful. When Rina is mysteriously offered an opportunity from the FBI to assist as an informant, she cannot refuse. Completely out of her comfort zone yet mesmerized by this secrecy and newly found purpose Rina puts her skills and a friendship from her past to work. What initially begins as a way to escape her restlessness quickly turns into unimaginable escapades in the mysterious world of espionage. Rina must find a way to balance subterfuge and responsibility to survive. Fast paced cold war spy novel, A Woman of Intelligence is the perfect mix of history, politics, feminism and family drama.

A Woman of Intelligence is a first-hand look into a woman pushing gender roles during post-WWII decades. Katharina's role as an interpreter for the United Nations demonstrated how advanced women's education placed them in spheres which challenged the patriarchy, but her eventual step away due to pregnancy fits the norm of social expectations on women. I appreciated the commentary of how isolating motherhood can be and feel like many others would relate to the struggle of career and family. Some of the secondary characters felt a little underdeveloped and their character arcs along with the plot felt rushed in the second half. I enjoyed reading this novel set in New York while I explored the city for the first time and could visualize the places and city details Karin Tanabe included!

I really wanted to read this book because it was an FBI thriller. However, I could not get into Katharine. She was a very weak character who let her children run over her. Thus, this novel had great promise but was not executed well. Still, I recommend this for fans of The Alice Network!

Great story with a good cast of characters and a well written, tightly paced plot. I will definitely be reading more by this author!! 4 stars!