Oh, I loved this latest book by Karin Tanabe! A Woman of Intelligence brings the reader on a trip filled with intriguing backdrops (like the FBI), glitz and glamour (hello, upper class New York in the 40s/50s), and intrigue (KGB, anyone?) in a way that manages to both read like a thriller and maintain a sense of realism. Worth a read!

This started off strong and intriguing. Tina Edgeworth is an intelligent woman living in g gilded cage in postwar NYC. On the surface she has it all, but she needs more than the day-to-day care of her two young sons. She is approached by the FBI to utilize her skills during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Raina is a likable protagonist, her family and friends are less than compelling.

I will happily read any book by Karin Tanabe and her latest lyrical historical thriller, “A Woman of Intelligence” is another excellent, must-read book. This book features an interesting time period and well-drawn, fascinating characters.

It’s the late 1940’s and early 1950’s in America; known for the “Red Scare”, it’s an era that we may not think about much today. We see the world through the eyes of the main character, Katharina “Rina” Edgeworth. Rina represents many young women of her day. Born in New York City of immigrant parents, she learned multiple languages and was Ivy League educated.

New York is an exuberant place to be after World War II. Hope and delight abound, and Rina drinks it all in. She works for the newly created United nations as an interpreter, and in the evening, she plays in the “playgrounds” of Manhattan.

But Rina is not just a party girl. She is committed to helping the world come together after the War and she takes pride in her work at the U.N. Marriage does not call to her until she meets and falls in love with a dedicated doctor from a wealthy upper-crust family, Tom Edgeworth. Rina happily marries him, and marriage leads to children, and children lead to a major change in her life.

Is she in a gilded cage? Yes, if she lets herself be. A chance opportunity leads her to work covertly for the FBI. The FBI is investigating Communist groups and Soviet infiltrators. She thrives in her new secret life. Will she leave her privileged captivity? Is her husband Tom more a captive than she is?

Although Rina, with her spirit, intelligence, passion is a wonderfully complex and fascinating character, New York City also shines in a lead role. I enjoyed this book because of the fascinating characters, the exciting story line and the reflections on a woman’s life. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance review copy. This is my honest review

It would seem that the author was imposing her current life into the life of her story which was set in 1954. There were a number of glaring discrepancies in the time period - panty hose for one. Perhaps these things would not be so distracting to a modern miss, but I had a hard time following the plot when the time period was one that I experienced and which the author, apparently, did not. Consequently, I did not finish the book.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Oh this book will take you by surprise. In all honesty it started a bit slow for me however it quickly picked up the pace and really kept it up.

A thoroughly smart and enjoyable piece of historical fiction. It is a tale of growing into maturity, finding our gifts and then balancing family... until the ideal perfect family nearly breaks you. Then, you must learn to find yourself again, for your dream is the American dream. You really want it all. This Post WWII novel brings us through the early stages of the Cold War and makes one ask how well you know yourself. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance read.

I did not love this one... I almost decided to not finish it but I pushed through.
The first 6 or so chapters were just the main character complaining about her opulent life, with her doctor husband and two young sons, and how she missed her single days when she was an interpreter. I was like I get it, you’re unhappy.
It got a little better once I got past the whining chapters and she was recruited by the FBI to get evidence on a communist leader she knew in college. That’s when the complaining chapters felt like they had some merit because her husband got very controlling and mean. It was very gilded cage.
It was an interesting story, but I just didn’t love it. It was very well written and well researched.

I received this novel as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rina is an interpreter at the United Nations in New York after WWII. When she meets Tom she quickly falls in love. She is content being a mother and wife until the 1950s when the FBI needs her help against communists.

There are so many good things I can write about A Woman of Intelligence as this is absolutely one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I loved the sophisticated, and often witty humor, along with the well crafted plot. The twists and turns kept me guessing what might happen next and I sure didn't want to put author Karin Tanabe's book down. It was that good.

Highly recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

Rina was an interpreter at the United Nations in New York in the late 1940s after the war. Then she met Tom, a gifted childrens surgeon with a moneyed background and fell in love. Now in the early 1950s she the mother of two trying to balance motherhood and society duties and feeling very bored. An opportunity falls in her lap to help the FBI root out communists and she jumps at the chance!

This is a fascinating look at 1950s life in New York. It is well researched and enjoyable to read.

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from NetGalley. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.

It took me a little bit to get into this book but I’m very glad I kept reading. Overall a story where I immediately felt for the main character and needed to find out what happened next.

3.8. I really like the author, Karin Tanabe. She is a truly gifted young writer and I have enjoyed her historical fiction novels, particularly The Diplomat's Daughter and The Gilded Years. All of her novels are extremely well researched. Therefore, I was looking forward to her new novel, A Woman of Intelligence. This novel, , and perhaps more like A Hundred Suns, is a historical novel, rich in research of the era, but more in the thriller genre. This novel takes part in post World War II 1950s New York City during the beginnings of the Cold War. Her protagonist, Katherina, is an accomplished woman, a child of immigrants, with an Ivy League degree fluent in several languages, who embarks upon a career at the newly formed United Nations as a translator. This career path all comes to an abrupt halt when she meets a wealthy pediatric surgeon and becomes a mother of two boys. The Cold War twist is interesting as Katherina becomes an informant for the FBI of a former college classmate and lover. Ms. Tanabe did a good job generally in showing how informants worked and infiltrated organizations they were investigating. However, for me, I truly enjoyed reading more of her dilemma as a once successful, ambitious careerwoman turning into a new parent within the constraints on women during the 1950s to cherish home and domestic life above all else. I know Ms. Tanabe is a mother of young children and I thought she truly captured the conflicts professional women face when confronted with parenthood, probably more so in the 1950s. The writing is very good and crisp, but I found the plot lacking at times and at some times not realistic. Most characters were well developed but not all. This was not my favorite book of Ms. Tanabe, but I look forward to more of her work. Thanks to Netgalley, I received an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

I really liked this book. I liked the main character and felt sorry for her. Her life looks perfect from afar but she is miserable because she is trapped in the 1950s paradigm of married womanhood. Her two children are terrors. She longs for her previous existence as a single career woman. At that time, women left their jobs when they married and certainly upon becoming pregnant. In Rina's case, her boss asked her to resign when her pregnancy became embarrassingly obvious. To make matters worse, her husband is obsessed with his own career and can't understand why his wife isn't content staying home and breastfeeding their two brats. I hated the husband. Good writing and vivid storytelling evokes that type of reaction.
Rina did not seem to accomplish much in her secret role as an informant other than meeting new people and having a few thrills. However, she did make some decisions about her future. This woman and her life became very real for me as I read about her. I felt the thrill she experienced sneaking around and the dread of facing her chauvinistic husband after she stays out partying with friends.
The author boldly created a female character without well developed maternal instincts. This will not appeal to a lot of female readers. This is not "women's fiction" which tends to focus on women juggling traditional female roles with more modern choices. This character is not constantly gushing over her kids. She really does not know how to deal with children. I found this so different and refreshing. Had Rina been born a few decades later, she may not have had children at all. Her awkwardness in the maternal role was palpable. I felt every emotion along with her.
So why not 5 stars? I think her experience as an informant was under developed and a bit of a flop. Goals were not clearly defined. What was she trying to achieve? Maybe it was irrelevant. She was discovering herself. Spying on communists was merely a means to that end. I actually expected her to become a communist sympathizer or join the communist party. I'd love to read another book that picks up where this one left off.
I will definitely read this author again.
As a bonus, this book is full of witty quotes that makes reading it an even greater pleasure.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Excellent premise and well researched. I enjoyed this one but felt it was a little slow to get into.
The story takes place mainly in the 1950s while the main character, Rina, is married with two young children. From the outside she appears to have the perfect life, but it is far from it.
A good story overall!

I loved the historical perspective of A Woman of Intelligence. It's New York City in the 1950's when we meet protagonist, Katharina Edgeworth. As we meet her, she's married to surgeon, Tom Edgeworth, and mother to two toddlers. But before she evolved into this persona, Katharina was a highly intelligent, independent woman who worked as a translator at the new United Nations. By day she worked with diplomats from around the world, and by night she was a happy single girl spending her nights out on the town. Katharina loves her family, but the transition from her previous life into the life of a stay-at-home mom (at her husband's insistence) is stultifying. Like a lot of men I've met over the years, Tom proclaims to love strong women, but what he really loves is the 'idea' of strong women. In reality he wants someone beautiful to take to his work events but who is otherwise at home by herself taking care of his kids. Prepare to hate him!

One day Katharina is approached by a man named Lee Coldwell. Lee is an FBI agent, and he has a proposition for Katharina. It's the Cold War era, and Lee is pursuing an intelligence operative for the Soviet Union. His name is Jacob Gornev, and he and Katharina went to Columbia together and were quite close. Coldwell would like Katharina to become reacquainted with Gornev and get intel on a new project Gornev is working on and to identify traitors working for the US government to help him. Katharina is reluctant at first, but with tensions rising in her home life, she ultimately agrees to work with Coldwell.

A Woman of Intelligence is a fast-paced spy thriller with the added benefit of historical fiction. Karen Tanabe is a talented writer, who excels at character development, and I loved Katharina. I would definitely be interested if Ms. Tanabe were to continue this into a series.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. A Woman of Intelligence is expected to be published on July 20, 2021..

I found this book very readable.  I have previously read and enjoyed Tanabe; I like how she focused so much on women's lives.  This book focuses on a new mother, Katharina, that is dealing with the battles of losing herself as a person after becoming a mother. This part of the story is fascinating to me and very relatable.  The other aspect of the book is she becomes a spy for the FBI, this is less relatable but still intriguing.  I really am enjoying books that highlight the troubles of motherhood and womanhood lately, especially when it shows we have been fighting the same issues for centuries.

Thank you NetGalley for this early copy of a Woman of Intelligence. This is 3.5 stars read. I found this book interesting for the time and place it was staged at. I also felt there was a lot of words, and descriptions and yet somehow not a lot of detail. Maybe I wanted this book to be more about other things than it was.
This is a story about a woman who is losing her identity after becoming a mother. It is a story of a time when a woman being a mother was the pinnacle of achievement. This is a story of woman who becomes a spy. And yet it is a flat story of all of this. I think mostly it is a story of a woman who lost herself and had to struggle back to reclaim who she wants to be. But who she was on one hand was a party girl with a lot of freedom who worked at the UN. I am not sure how long that could have continued until it became old as the work/job she did there itself was never told in anything less than a very broad stroke while the cheap meals and drinking was more in-depth as were the girlfriends she would party with. (whom supposedly being so close were so one dimensional that her being married and a mother did not allow any type of friendship to continue. yes, yes life and what you are able to do after having a family alters but how deep was that friendship if they can not find an iota of common ground afterwards)
I think the thing that for me was most out of character was her husbands demand that she take care of two babies without any outside help. And second that her loving close family did not come to help at all. That her loving family basically had one phone call with her during this period of the book. To me that is not the definition of loving or close. Third, that this independent woman was able to allow herself to be so cowed down with her husband. That whatever he thought was best for her she went along with knowing that it was not working for her, her kids, or her husband. There were excuses all around as to why this was happening but it just seemed a 180 turn as to whom she was before. A woman with so many languages at her disposal, having worked in a place where negotiations and peace were brokered all the time, could not find the words to talk to her husband about what she was experiencing was sad.
I did like the book, I just thought it could have been more interesting with a deeper look into the myriad of topics it touched on; postpartum, red scare, race relations, woman's role changing in the 50s, mental health.
Anyhoo, I am glad I read it - was an interesting story.

A Woman of Intelligence A Novel by Karin Tanabe.

The beginning of this story is a layout of the main character and her lifestyle through the years, which kept me thinking “I thought this book was about working for the FBI.” It actually is a story about a woman who is unhappy, has a most horrendous day and then is approached and asked to work for the FBI. Working for the FBI turns out to be a salvation for Katharina Edgeworth, giving her a sense of accomplishment & success.

The storyline seems a little unbelievable, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. Have New Yorkers ever been approached on the street & asked for assistance from the FBI? It’s a fun idea. I very much appreciate Katharina’s desire to work outside the home and what it adds to her life. Don’t forget this novel takes place in an era when “a woman’s place is in the home” was, in some circles, the only accepted lifestyle.

Readers who enjoy descriptive detailing of New York society in the 1940s are really going to appreciate this book. From the parties, to the United Nations, museums, clubs, parks, downtown & subway travel there’s plenty to delightfully absorb! Paints a wonderful depiction of 1940’s Manhattan.

Thank you to #Netgalley, St Martin’s Press, and Karin Tanabe for the ARC and the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC! I have to say, it was difficult to get into this book in the beginning chapters...but keep reading! It got really good later on, and I finished the other 75% of it in a couple days.

Notable lines:

“It didn’t sound so bad, but the mirror told me that it wasn’t just the weight, it was the alterations made by motherhood. The two bundles of joy had wreaked havoc on my frame . . . I was a piece of art.”

“The point is, feeling sorry for yourself will do nothing but make the world a worse place.”

“Even when the world was growing dark in your mind, New York refused to agree. She always kept a light on for you.”

“ . . . thank you for overlapping your world with mine for a little while. Whatever this story was, it added life to my life. And I loved it . . .”

I had quite high hopes for this book, and in the end I thought it was just... fine. The plot didn't draw me in as much as I'd hoped, although the writer is obviously skilled. All the elements were there, but for some reason it didn't come together to make a story that swept me away. I'm glad to see from the other reviews that this wasn't the case for most people, so I will still be recommending the book to those who enjoy historical fiction and women's fiction.