The Alice Network
by Kate Quinn
Narrated by Saskia Maarleveld
Why Listen to This Audiobook?
The Alice Network was real — and that detail transforms Maarleveld's performance from historical fiction into something that feels uncomfortably close to testimony.
- Great if you want: dual-timeline WWII fiction driven by fierce, flawed women
- Listening experience: slow build with an emotionally punishing final stretch
- Narration: Maarleveld switches French, British, and American registers cleanly
- Skip if: wartime violence against women is a hard stop for you
About This Audiobook
In 1947, an American college girl named Charlie breaks free from her family's plans for her and travels to London searching for a cousin who disappeared during the Nazi occupation of France. What she finds is Eve Gardiner, a scarred and solitary woman who once served as a spy in occupied Paris under the legendary code name Alice, and who has spent decades drinking away the memory of a betrayal that destroyed her network. Kate Quinn's dual-timeline novel weaves their stories together with both propulsive plotting and genuine emotional depth.
Saskia Maarleveld's narration handles the tonal contrast between the World War I sections and the 1947 frame with impressive range, the younger timeline carrying an urgency that the elder Charlie and Eve match with hard-won complexity. The Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction reflects a novel that works on multiple registers simultaneously, and Maarleveld makes the most of both. At just over fifteen hours, The Alice Network earns its length through the quality of the journey.
