The Lipstick Bureau : a novel /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz!



Inspired by a real-life female spy, a novel about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost.



"A gripping, fascinating read." --Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Orphan



1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.



Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others--now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau--find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.



As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she's been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death...



Don't miss Michelle Gable's new spellbinding novel, The Beautiful People, where a failed debutante becomes a photographer's assistant and enters into Palm Beach's dazzling inner circle during the glamorous 1960s Jet Set...



More from Michelle Gable:

The Bookseller's Secret

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Soldiers and politicians weren't the only players during World War II. Surprisingly, many of the unsung heroes were women. Gable (The Bookseller's Secret) has created a brilliant, gripping historical novel about one of those women. When the Office of Strategic Services was founded in 1942, 4,500 women worked to create and distribute misinformation to the Nazi invaders in Europe. Czechoslovakian Niki Novotná was one of those women. Highly skilled at creating propaganda to demoralize Hitler's troops, her contribution and that of many other women was a key part of the ultimate defeat of the Nazis. But her job comes at a personal cost. Separated from her husband while she works in Rome, her marriage begins to crumble. Then the Bureau is hit with charges that their tactics of disinformation and the use of POWs to disseminate that disinformation, are in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. But their work continues until the end of the war and has a profound impact on the ultimate victory of the Allied troops. VERDICT Well researched and smartly told, this novel is a must read for World War II buffs and those who like a peek behind the curtain of the role women played in it.--Jane Henriksen Baird

Booklist Review

Based on the pioneering and pivotal OSS officer Barbara Lauwers, Gable's (The Bookseller's Secret, 2021) heroine, Niki Novotna, embraces her role within the Morale Operations team based in Rome during WWII. Far from being as benign and uplifting as it sounds, the MO squad was tasked with "black propaganda," what we would now deem disinformation, to undermine the resolve of Nazi troops. Roman prostitutes and German POWs are conscripted in schemes colorfully named Sauerkraut and Operation Cornflakes, putting Niki and her cohorts in danger of court-martial under the Geneva Convention. Yet the risk is worth it, for Niki has an ulterior motive riding on the success of her campaigns, for her family may still be in occupied Czechoslovakia. When her husband, a fellow OSS officer, becomes frustratingly unhelpful in tracking their safety, Niki eventually takes comfort in the arms of her colleague, Major William Dewart. Gable's deeply personal historical fiction vividly conjures the deprivations of war-torn Rome and the tenacity and creativity of a valiant, rag-tag group charged with changing the course of history.