Refreshing to read historical fiction that is not set during WW2. I really liked how Tanabe explored motherhood and the traditional roles that women faced (and in many ways, continue to face) during the 50s. I do believe that while women have every opportunity available to them today, there still exists pressure to be the "perfect" wife and mother, putting others needs before our own.

Our identity/value/purpose as a woman need not hinge solely on one thing: motherhood or career. Women are multilayered, changing and adapting as they age and seeing Rina know herself, then begin to feel lost and discover her new self was very well done.

I wasn't a fan of the tiptoeing into an affair (or almost an affair) but that didn't completely ruin the book for me.

The publisher provided me with a dARC through Netgalley; this is my honest review.

Set in 1950's New York, this is a fascinating plot about a woman who once once a translator and now feels she is drowning in domesticity. When the FBI approaches her, asking her to become an agent dealing with the KGB, she is torn by the exciting prospect but agonizes at the dangers it may present to her loved ones. Bold, fearless and clever, Katharina must navigate two worlds. A roller coast of a plot, exhilerating ,Highly recommend!

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't think it was fair to review a book I didn't finish.

The book starts about family and socializing.. The story of UN translator and FBI agent.. Her back story was the best part for me. Her ivy league school time and her life with her family. Being a mother of 6 this really resonated with me.

It was wonderfully descriptive and written with delicate beauty. I finished this one in 2 days. Hard to put down.
Flawlessly narrated and well scripted, I was hooked from the first sentence. The pace stayed even and worked so well for the storyline.

Loved every moment and cannot wait to see what the author does next

5 stars

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Reading about strong female characters is everything! We meet Katharina who used to work for UN as a translator and had a liberating and exciting life. Her life was nights out, fancy cars, diplomats buying her meals and just letting loose. Until she gets married and becomes a mother. Meeting her super smart, super famous doctor husband immediately made me dislike him. He strongly 'encourages' Katharina to become a stay at home mom to care for their children and to be the doting mother and his 'loving wife.' She is overwhelmed with the loss of identity and lack of recognition to be her own person. Until she nabs the opportunity to work with the FBI.

This is an exciting, thrilling and captivating read. As a female myself, I felt strongly towards Katharina and her strong sense of advocacy of being a woman who is able to play multiple roles of a spy, mother, wife and caretaker all in one. I love the themes of social justice, gender equality, identity and others that the narration and storyline brings up. If you like historical fiction, this one is for you! This is the first book I've read by the author but I know it certainly won't be the last!

This is a very compelling book. Katharina is well educated and before her marriage worked at the UN. She is now the wife of a busy doctor and the mother of two children. She finds her life monotonous and wants to escape and do something more challenging. When the FBI secretly comes to her with a job she is happy to accept. She is to spy on someone she once knew and become an informant. This is in 1954 when most wives didn’t work outside the home and they definitely didn’t take on a role such as this one. This book had me nervously turning the pages as Katharina got more involved. I found Katharina to be very complex and that made her more interesting. Overall this was a great book and I want to read more from this author.

A bit of a slow read, but once I got into it I was into it. Frustrating to "experience" what today would be recognized as Postpartum Depression but then was just seen as being a bad mother.

Unfortunately, this one wasn't my cup of tea. I felt the feminism was lackluster and one dimensional, and I couldn't quite suspend my disbelief to get onboard with Rina's secret spy life.

Her history working at the UN, speaking five languages, and making friends and a career all on her own before ever meeting Tom was far and above the most interesting part for me. I guess I wanted more of the past of her own making to come into play with her current "intelligence" work, but instead the entire premise for the FBI reaching out to her was because she happened to date/sleep with a known Russian communist way back in her college days.

Meanwhile, I did enjoy reading about her trials and frustrations with motherhood and her strained marriage. That aspect felt the most real to me, the most raw, and had the most heart to it. Rina struggling to get her husband to see and respect her "housewife" work was a great mirror to how Rina felt seen and appreciated doing spy work. However, the side plot where she gets involved with Turner Wells felt cheap and unnecessary, and took away from the importance and magnitude of her other objectives (spying for the FBI, and standing up for herself at home).

I think this book definitely has an audience out there that will love it, but it just wasn't me this time!

Oof. This was a bit painful to read as it just didn’t match my expectations based on the summary. It’s more about an unhappy woman after giving up her career for marriage and kids. I’d rather it was not about her marital unhappiness and her feelings for her handler, but more about her life as an informant. I will say that the book cover is beautiful and striking.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

I struggled from the very beginning to connect with this story and with the main character. She went to Ivy League school and speaks four languages, works for UN and FBI but turns out to be a character who lacks depth.

I was first drawn to A Woman of Intelligence from the description and the beautiful cover. I was not familiar with Karin Tanabe's writing so I had no expectations.

This is a story about a woman who was an Ivy League graduate, spoke four languages, worked at the UN and then got married and became a mother. I found it difficult to connect with this character. She should have been very interesting and multi-faceted. I found her to be shallow. Tom, the husband, was a jerk. There is no other way to describe him.

I would not say that this story is poor. I just found it lacking. The premise was good but so much I found to be not quite believable. I do think others will enjoy the story so that is why I am rounding the 2.5 stars up to 3.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

I would like to thanks St. Johns Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. This book was set in an era that I didn't know and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Must read for history buffs.

My opinions on this book varied from chapter to chapter. Sometimes I loved the story and Rina's character, while other times she frustrated me to no end. I thought the commentary on motherhood and what it means to be both a mother and an individual was especially poignant and was definitely my favorite part of the story. The actual "spy" part of the story was what I found least interesting, along with Turner's character, but I loved getting to watch Rina become herself again and form friendships with other women for the first time in years. It was a really interesting historical fiction perspective that I'd never really read before, and it definitely hooked me, despite some of my problems with it.

This one started out strong for me but I found it began to slow down too much and by midway my interest waned. I really wanted to enjoy it as it checks a lot of the boxes for components of a good book for me. Might have just been a case of right book wrong time.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and Karin Tanabe for free e-ARC of A Woman of Intelligence in return of my honest review.

Katharina Edgeworth, young woman of early 1950s, Columbia alumni, translator for the UN finds herself strapped to motherhood by two children and a despotic husband. She thought she wanted family life, to be tied to her children and be a perfect wife for her husband Tom, acknowledged surgeon in Children's Hospital However, she finds herself struggling to adapt and keep reminiscing about her past. Her husband believes that he provides everything she needs - a perfect shelter (Fifth Avenue apartment) and takes care of everything else. He does, however, he completely disregards her mental health. At the same Katharina manages to spark interest with FBI due to her college connection to well known Communist. From one meeting, her new secret life has began. Now she has to handle not only her children, but a state secret affairs, while hiding this new development from her husband.

I was definitely intrigued by Katharina's character - she seems like a dream woman - working in the City Hall, then UN, getting married to a seemingly good man and then struggling to adjust to her new life style. At first, she was wonderfully developed - given one layer after another and becoming a multidimensional strong female lead. However, within after 50-60 pages nothing changed much abut her - she kept mopping about her situation though out the whole book, even when her situation has changed. Also I found it bizarre that she was so open-mined with all her experience before marriage and inability to explain herself to her own husband, man she presumably fell madly in love. She was so brave everywhere else except her own household.

Plot-wise I felt like it was a bit wishy-washy. There seems to be a structure, however, many plot lines did go unfinished (the untimely death of young Communist girl, etc). It is definitely not a fast-paced classic spy thriller, it is merely a literary fiction with supposedly string female character. I wish I enjoyed it more as it has a lot of potential, however, I got quite disappointed in the execution.

I givve the book 3 stars. 1 extra star for the theme of postpartum depression in early 50s and depiction of mental health disregard during those days.

Katarina Edgeworth is married to the perfect man, Dr. Tom Edgeworth. He is a well loved and respected surgeon in New York but, Katarina can't help but feel trapped. No longer a translator for the United NationThat is until an FBI agent wants her to become an informant.

However, when I got to the part where Tom Edgeworth's sister started calling Katarina a maniac I dnf'ed it. This was probably the last straw I had to stomach A Woman of Intelligence. I dnf'ed it at exactly 30% into the book. Let me explain from the beginning as to what I thought went wrong with A Woman of Intelligence.

I felt as though the progression was **too** slow. We still haven't gotten to the part where she accepts the FBI agent and becomes a double agent of sorts because even though it's been 30% through the book, it's **very** slow. I'd also like to mention Tom's behavior was absolutely unacceptable and his sister was worse. Katarina is wild and hardworking when she was young but the moment she marries Tom and has her two kids, she becomes a rather depressed and lifeless stay at home mom. First off, I must say, I'm a little disappointed with that. Stay at home mothers can be full of life, and so, to me this portrayal was just off and I wasn't a fan of this. The treatment of Tom as well, oh my I think that was one of the straws that was just unbelievable for me. For him to be a doctor and to not understand the difficulties of motherhood.

Besides the characters, I just felt this was too long of an introduction. We are 30% in and we are still talking about her life and have not gotten to the part where she even accepts the FBI agent to be an informant. I think that if the development were faster, perhaps I could overlook the unnecessary character dialogue. But, this book was too slow and just the writing style was something I couldn't move past. As a main character, Katarina seemed rather weak, not confident enough and while she had struggles, it shocked me to realize that she is the main character of the story and that she would become an informant.

A Woman of Intelligence was just not in depth enough and while I did not finish it and stopped at 30%, it irked me to no end the characters and the writing.

4 solid stars. This book was extremely interesting. While 1950's communist threat in the USA isn't my normal genre, the protagonist was wonderful (and if I'm totally honest, it completely justified my desire to never, ever have children!). Beautifully depicted, pick it up and give it a read!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. My opinion is my own and never influenced by anyone. Ever.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I was first drawn to this title when I saw the beautiful cover on Netgalley. That and the title drew me in. I wanted to know the story about the woman in the yellow dress. I'm very glad I took the time to read A Woman of Intelligence. I found it to be very well written and was immediately drawn in. The story is about Katharina, a woman raised in Europe in a loving, well-educated family, who is now on her own in New York. She is able to get a job at City Hall and then at the UN due to her knowledge of several languages. It was interesting to experience her journey of being a working woman in a time when that was looked down upon and then to experience her life as a wife and mother. Katharina ends up getting involved with the government spying on a communist she dated in college. I really enjoyed reading this title and would recommend it to others.

Thank you to Book Club Girls for the early read. What an amazing book! Love historical fiction. I just wanted to keep reading.

This was an excellent piece of historical fiction featuring a female protagonist who achieves above and beyond what many expected of women at the time. I really enjoyed reading this one, though I found myself a bit in shock at times at the stuff she had to go through.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.