I absolutely LOVED this book. What a woman our Invisible Woman was. Strong, intelligent, determined, courageous and unforgettable, among many other things. What an amazing woman who accomplished so much in aiding and training parts of the French Resistance. My heart went out to her as she worked hard to keep ice around her heart to keep strong and detached from relationships. This story of her and her resistance fighters is a wonderful work combining truth with fiction. Her love story was so sweet and tender I was moved to tears. There is a lot of pain and many losses told in this book which also brought me to tears. The evil Nazis are beyond belief, yet we know these atrocities did really happen. WWII followers will appreciate the courage of these men and women who helped win the war. It’s a fabulous book. One of my favorites. pamarella PRCS

Going through a reading streak of WWII novels, I stumbled on this story of Virginia Hall. While getting my bearings on a time/location that I personally knew little about during the war (late WWII in France), I read through the the book and quickly learned about the remarkable Hall. It's a tremendous story of persistence, leadership and how Hall was the unflappable glue between the different teams at play who helped put the finishing stamps on the war. Robuck's writing brings the characters clearly to the front, paints the picture of where they were, and the feelings of the time. I could see the roads between towns, the disguises that helped protect Hall, the barns that hid her, and the different people who made it possible. I could feel the tension between the resistance forces, the losses felt by loved ones, and the intensity for the war to finish. What Hall had to do to keep poise between teams in London and France, as well as within the different factions in France is unbelievable. The book takes you to the pressures of survival, passion for country, and the feelings of hope, while French citizens fight for the end of Nazi control. The book is entertaining as you weave through the fighting forces, the supporters, and spies. What I like most of all is that the book has stayed with me and created a desire to learn more about the connected characters both in and out The Invisible Woman. Jump in and follow "the limping lady" on her mission to liberate France!

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN by Erika Robuck is one of the best World War Two novels I have ever read. The subject matter is raw and gritty and despairing, and Robuck doesn’t flinch at portraying an authentic picture. Her protagonist, Virginia Hall, provides a rich story on which to build, and Robuck doesn’t disappoint. An accomplished storyteller, she expertly weaves her narrative around meticulously researched historic facts, blending the horror of war-torn France with gripping prose. Every page will leave you breathless. The characters spring off the page and wiggle into your soul, and you won’t be able to forget them. Long after you finish the novel, you’ll remain mesmerized by the courage and tenacity of ordinary people. Grieving for the ones who were lost and rejoicing in the triumph of the survivors. Every page takes you so deeply within Virginia Hall, you’ll believe you are actually in the villages in France—hungry, cold and in mortal danger. Robuck flawlessly combines every aspect of fiction—compelling story, intriguing characters, evocative prose, and gritty, vividly wrought settings—to create a captivating, heart-wrenching masterpiece. This is a novel everyone needs to read. Do it. Now. You’ll thank me.

Very well written. A different story than the same old WWII books that are out there. I love that it is based on a true story, but the author is very clear that she took some liberties. I would recommend!

Her nom de guerre is Diane, but she is Virginia Hall, a young modern and affluent American studying in Paris in 1926 when she is introduced in the novel The Invisible Woman. She is daring, going to see Josephine Baker sing bare-breasted, and feisty, whacking her boyfriend when he kisses another girl at a party. Jump forward to March, 1944, Virginia’s gaiety is gone as she makes her way toward Haute-Loire, France, accompanied by Cuthbert, her prosthetic leg, on a mission to “unleash hell on the Nazis.” In wartime France as an SOE/OSS agent, Virginia chooses the name Diane, picked to spite the Nazis who’d called her Artemis, the Greek goddess equivalent to the Roman’s goddess Diane. The Gestapo also called her “the Limping Lady.” The plot of the novel is fast paced. The reader stays on the edge of her seat during every airdrop Diane arranges, every coded message she sends, and every Nazi checkpoint she must pass as she moves deeper into France. The characters are well developed through a third person narrative written from Diane’s point of view. The narrative technique is skillfully employed by the author to make the danger real and convey the heartbreak suffered by members of the French Resistance when one of their members, often a spouse or relative, is captured or killed. Interwoven into the story are many flashbacks that tell Virginia’s story: her childhood summers at Box Horn Farm in America, where as she got older she had the nickname “Dindy,” her “lightning-fast romance” with Emil in the 1930s, and the accident in Smyrna in 1933 when her leg must be amputated. The last is a turning point in the story, not directly related to the war but significant in that it made Virginia into the determined woman who later became a heroine. The characters in The Invisible Woman are brilliantly crafted and make the novel a literary work. They are sometimes as reckless as they are brave, and they are emotionally complex, revealing as Diane interacts with them the fears and sorrows in their lives, and giving testament to the atrocities inflicted upon them by the Germans. As the story moves forward, D-Day looms, “The long sobs of the violins of autumn,” and arrives, when the “heart is drowned in the slow sound, languorous and long.” Then the German barbarity explodes, the actions and characters so monstrous that one must put down the book occasionally to take a breath, as if looking away from the horrible carnage depicted in a movie. The monsters, unforgettably described, are Anton Haas, the German MP, an early pursuer of the Limping Lady, and Robert Alesch, the haughty priest with “ice-blue eyes” and “doughy white skin,” who betrayed the Resistance for the Gestapo’s money. And then, finally, comes the story’s zenith, brought by a Jedburgh named Paul Goillot, his real name. For Diane it is the beginning of a metamorphosis from the leader of le Corps Franc Diane to Virginia Hall. Erika Robuck carefully researched the heroine and events in The Invisible Woman. This is clearly shown in the Afterword and additional information at the end of the book. Beside Virginia Hall, many of the characters are based, sometimes loosely and sometimes precisely, on real participants in the French Resistance. What is most remarkable about the novel, however, is not historical accuracy but the magnificent creation of the characters in the book. Virginia Hall is brought to life in the story, as is the depiction of her life struggle and the horrible circumstances in France inflicted by the Nazis in World War II. Robuck’s novel is a beautiful work, so complex and nuanced that readers will carry the story with them for a long time. Mark Zvonkovic, Reviewer and Author