Code Name Verity was a surprise hit in 2012 not only because of Elizabeth Wein’s original and witty style, but also for the spotlight she placed on rarely seen women contributing to WWII efforts. Verity and Maddie were plucky and brave, and to re-visit Julie (code name Verity) in 1938 was both a delight and a little bit heart-breaking.

It isn’t necessary to have read Code Name Verity before The Pearl Thief. In fact, I read one comment suggesting it might be better to read this new one first. It doesn’t matter, truly. Reading either will send you off to the other (in fact, right now while I write this review, I have my kindle open to Verity and am reliving her adventures and looking for Julie in every line). Just for the purposes of accuracy, there was another companion novel too, Rose Under Fire, published in 2013, and follows another woman pilot captured and imprisoned in a women’s concentration camp. Full disclosure, I haven’t read that one, but its reviews (on GR) are overwhelmingly positive.

The Pearl Thief reads like a period Ms Marple mystery. Julie arrives home early from boarding school, is whacked on the back of the head and spends two days unconscious in hospital waking with few blurry memories. Once back home, she endeavours to figure out what happened to her and why. Set on her Scottish ancestral land, readers soon learn that her family, the Beaufort-Stuarts have lost everything to crippling debt, and this last summer the family are packing up and moving out, while the contractors come in to convert the castle and grounds to a private school. There’s also a library with many items still to catalogue, and a lot of the action and mystery is centered here.

It’s this exploration of the changing times that author Wein handles so beautifully, and so poignantly. At 15, Lady Julia is privileged and very aware of the advantages of her station. Yet, she is not one to lord it over others, demonstrated by her tendency to dress and act like a boy, and her fierce loyalty to the McEwan’s, a family of Scottish travelers, spurred and demonised by the general population. Fortunately, Julie’s whole family understand the long standing traditional co-existence of the travelers and the landowners, and how they both benefit from the arrangement of providing land for the itinerant families while they helped with seasonal work. With the advent of industrialisation and automation, leading to the crumbling breakdown of social classes, we can see it’s the end of an era. We also know that war is on the horizon, although it’s not mentioned once. I am glad Wein doesn’t try to be clever and give any pretentious foreshadowing. Julie lives right in the moment. If anything, she looks back to a time when her grandfather was alive, and her childhood was carefree, and life wasn’t as complicated.

Julie’s interactions with Euan and Ellen McEwan, the travelers who rescue her, comprise the most compelling friendships, but we also meet Mary, the librarian, Julie’s brothers Jamie and Sandy. As with any mystery there are a number of suspects, and Wein makes readers work as she introduces any number of characters, all who add diversity and richness, red herrings and motivations. The story uses expressions and attitudes pertinent to the day, although Julie’s inclination to enjoy kissing both boys and girls seems tres moderne, it totally works. She’s an open-hearted, free-spirit who declares her desire to be bold and daring. She is all that without even trying. She noses around looking for clues, she questions any number of suspects, she manipulates people and circumstances to further her investigations, and never gives up. Does this make her the perfect person to become, oh, maybe a spy? Possibly. Because she’s truly wondrous here.

It’s a grand adventure told by a feisty and clever person. The Pearl Thief is highly recommended for readers who love their stories complex and involving. It’s a historical piece that recreates the time period with accuracy and delight. There’s a longing and nostalgia for a time past, and a lot of talk about connections and lineage, but also a reverence for preserving historical artefacts for the greater good, rather than personal gain or glory. Unsurprisingly, there’s also a certain poignancy for those of us familiar with Code Name Verity.

Copy provided by publisher, via Netgalley and read with thanks. Already out in the US and UK. Coming to Australian and New Zealand on June 1 2017.

Vintage mysteries are one of my favourite genres when I need entertaining escapism, I like a quirky amateur detective and a case that's all about the puzzle rather than the crime itself. It's a simple formula but it is difficult to get right and The Pearl Thief fails on several levels. The setting is Scotland, it's impossible to miss it with the superabundance of dialect words and phrases. It's so overwhelming at times that it's simply trying too hard, desperate to remind you at each turn that this is Scotland, with all the semi-mythical associations that go along with it. The time period is less easy to pin down, vaguely interwar, perhaps? 1920s? 1930s? It was never made clear.

My real bug-bear with this one was the characters. Retro crime, even the best of Golden Age crime, isn't known for the depth of its characters. They mainly play to type, representing broad categories of society in quite predictable ways with the eccentric detective perhaps breaking mould a little with his or her particular foibles. It's an established form, comforting in its way to those who enjoy the genre, however this does not remove all restraints on characters, they may not be particularly complex but there needs to be some element of credibility. Julie just did not. She's a thoroughly modern girl transposed onto a past time without any consideration for how her background and her surrounding would have shaped her character. There's a desperate need for diversity in literature but to simplify the experience of bisexuality in this way without any acknowledgement of the uncertainty or difficulties surrounding this issue is a disservice. Sexuality, and particularly sexuality for women in any form, is not easy now, for Julie to accept it so blithely in the early twentieth century is ridiculous. Which brings me to the issue of her age. Julie is supposed to be fifteen and yet not a thing throws her, she is utterly self-possessed, so self-possessed that the way she responds to several events would be a stretch for an experienced adult, let alone a sheltered, upper-class, boarding school educated teenage girl.

Julie aside the plot would be difficult for any character support. The amnesia trope is never a good move unless you make the effort to subvert expectations, it really is only one step above the "it was all a dream" resolution. It's simply lazy writing because it provides a mystery without requiring any effort and those sudden flashbacks are an easy route to clues that would be otherwise meaningless. The fact that Julie's amnesia apparently stems from a head injury that left her unconscious for several DAYS and yet she manifests no other symptoms of concussion (except when she feigns them) is a medical miracle. With this spurious basis for the story lost any hold on me that it might have had, it is almost unbearably slow and totally lacking in tension. I found myself having to think carefully in order to remember what the mystery actually was, I certainly couldn't bring myself to care.

I have loved everything I've read by Elizabeth Wein and The Pearl Thief was no exception. I didn't realise until I started it that the book was a prequel to the phenominal Codename Verity featuring a 15 yr old Julie. I'm glad I didn't know because I would have felt some trepidation at going in to a story fraturing a beloved character from a far grittier story set now in a cosy mystery. I needn't have worried. In her usual, seemingly effortless manner Wein gives us a deep, textured novel rich in historical detail with a cracking cast. This was spell binding and far more complex than a simple cosy mystery. Loved it.

I have been eyeing up Ms Wein’s books for some time now especially Code Name Verity, her wartime book that I’m told portrays the endurance of friendship during times of difficulty. The Pear Thief is actually billed as a prequel of Code Name Verity but it can definitely be read as a standalone which is what I did.

The Pearl Thief is set in rural Scotland and honestly this book made me fall head over heels with the landscape because Wein’s descriptive language and setting was so evocative. I will confess that there were quite a few words that were totally new to a born and bred Londoner like me (burn – which I think is Gaelic for ‘fresh water’ for example) so some of the descriptions weren’t the easiest for me to visualise but despite this I was able to get an idea of the gorgeous highlands and grand country house that Lady Julia lived in – testament to Wein’s writing definitely! I will say though, this is one of those books where a map at the beginning would have done wonders and perhaps a glossary for idiots like me 🙂

The river has a voice that doesn’t die. It is as inhuman and ancient as starlight.

Lady Julia our protagonist was an interesting character. I didn’t immediately take to her but she grew on me as the book went on. I liked how adventurous and gutsy she was and willing to be open-minded and experimental even if society frowned upon it. Her friendship and dynamic with Ellen was easily my favourite – it was complex and a lovely surprise in a historical YA book! There was quite a cast of secondary characters but as The Pearl Thief is told from the Julia’s perspective, I felt we didn’t get to delve into their personalities as much as I’d have liked to – especially the McEwens and Mary who stood out.

Wein wove in societal issues like discrimination against the traveller community, rape and poverty in a really subtle way and gave an insight into what life was like in rural Scotland during that period of history. The discrimination theme was eerily timely and a little frightening how many parallels I could draw between Britain in the 1930s and 2017! One of the unique things about The Pearl Thief was the premise: the Strathfearn family estate being sold to private developers – a part of history that is oft-overlooked. The sexier Downton Abbey-esque era definitely gets more attention and so it was intereting to see a teenager dealing with a drastic change of fortune. I enjoyed seeing Lady Julia rise above her title and circumstances and discover her privilege but also we’re not all that different – be it Lady or traveller.

They were the ‘dirty bold sleekit tinkers’. They were not dirty, did not appear to be all that bold, and it remained to be seen how sneaky they were. In fact, I was floored by the girl’s beauty.

The mystery and plot of The Pearl Thief definitely kept me guessing. I managed to figure out some of it right towards the end but was still pleasantly surprised at the reveal. I loved that the mystery had a solid story behind it, the pearls were given significance and a history which made it all the more interesting. However, I felt the pacing of The Pearl Thief could’ve been better. I definitely think the book could either have been shorter and punchier or instead just gone the whole hog and had more detail about the other characters – instead it was somewhere down the middle and had me at times just wanting to return to the central mystery.

Besides some minor issues, The Pearl Thief was a solid historical YA with a unique setting not often found in young adult lit. Wein’s descriptive language really added authenticity and the mystery was good whodunnit that kept you guessing. If you’re after something with a great heroine like Philip Pullman's classic Sally Lockhart series or Y.S. Lee’s brilliant The Agency series this one’s for you! The Pearl Thief is out on 4 May in the US and UK. Thanks again to Bloomsbury for the ARC 🙂

A delightful read

I started to read The Pearl Thief without realising it was a children’s book (it was on kindle) but it quickly captured my attention and interest. I’ve not read the others in the book but i can see this being a good series - there is a lot that adults will appreciate and I learned a lot about the art of pearl fishing in Scotland that I had never heard of! Perthshire apparently was quite a hotbed of pearl finds in the olden days.

There’s also mention of Shakespeare themes and books in general which added another interesting layer to the novel. The writing is fresh and easy to read too which helps and very evocative - there’s a sense that you can see and feel the scenery, hear the characters and there’s plenty to engage readers as a result.

A formerly wealthy family is living on an estate with a crumbling castle, mirroring their reversal of fortune. A girl who yearns for a grander life is sent there and becomes embroiled into the mystery of a missing man. This took me back to the days of the Famous Five (I’m not that old but I read them as a child hehe) and the sense of adventure that books often don’t have as an adult.

I want to be Julie now and dress up like her. Can I please?

I enjoyed this book, although admittedly it’s a really slow paced read. However the history and old world setting lend this book a lot of charm - not to mention it reminded me a lot of Enid Blyton’s classic Famous Five books - although maybe with not so much adventure.

The Pearl Thief is also a prequel to Elizabeth’s Wein’s debut, Code Name Verity which sadly, was a book I never finished. However I do think I will be giving it another try.

In this prequel the story follows fifteen-year-old Julie who, after the death of her beloved grandfather, returns to Scotland for the summer. But as her grandparents possessions are sold off, their stately home turned into a boarding school, only Julie seems to notice that the family pearls have gone missing.

But when a body is found in the river, Julie begins to suspect foul play. Befriending a family of travellers, she enlists their help to uncover the mystery before the summer ends. But there is more than one deadly plot underfoot, and Julie will risk it her life to see the world set to rights…

The setting of this book was incredible. Thanks to Elizabeth Wein’s beautiful writing the Scottish moors, the old ruins, the river pearls… everything was brought to life in a very colourful manner.

There were also many levels to the mystery. So many plot threads that when the twists came, I totally didn't seem them coming. However as much as I enjoyed trying to figure out who did what, I felt the story dragged in many places and the mystery itself lacked any kind of urgency.

In regards to the characters, they hailed from all walks of life, and each comes with an backstory along with unique quirks and traits of their own. For anyone wanting to learn more about Julie before the war, this is a great book to pick up. She is much more innocent and naive than the women we meet in CODE NAME VERITY, however I sort of wish this story had been kept to a novella, rather than becoming a full blown out book.

I say this because, while I enjoyed the story as a whole, it was often rather boring. There are pages upon pages where nothing happens - at least nothing relevant - and sometimes I got restless which made the book very easy to put down.

Sadly I didn't connect with the romance either. While I liked the fact that Julie appeared to be bi-sexual, I don't know how I felt about her kissing so many people… or encouraging a relationship between herself and a much, much older man. Yet conflicting with that - it was refreshing to read about a girl unafraid to explore her sexuality, even if it did get her in a bit of trouble.

Overall though I still enjoyed this book. If you are the kind of person who likes to have more than one book on the go, this one makes a good back burner. Otherwise I would say prepare yourself for a slow and very scenic trek through Julie’s world.

3 stars!

US cover
The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein is a prequel to her much-renowed Code Name Verity. Hence it is also set in the same universe of plausible World War II events as Rose Under Fire and Black Dove, White Raven, all of which I have read and enjoyed. None of those books are required reading before picking up The Pearl Thief, but I can attest to increased sentimentality while reading The Pearl Thief after having read Code Name Verity. I teared up almost every time roses were mentioned (and they were the same roses). 🥀

When fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in the hospital, she knows the lazy summer break she’d imagined won’t be exactly like she anticipated. And once she returns to her grandfather’s estate, a bit banged up but alive, she begins to realize that her injury might not have been an accident. One of her family’s employees is missing, and he disappeared on the very same day she landed in the hospital.

Desperate to figure out what happened, she befriends Euan McEwen, the Scots Traveller boy who found her when she was injured, and his standoffish sister Ellen. As Julie grows closer to this family, she experiences some of the prejudices they’ve grown used to firsthand, a stark contrast to her own upbringing, and finds herself exploring thrilling new experiences that have nothing to do with a missing-person investigation.

Her memory of that day returns to her in pieces, and when a body is discovered, her new friends are caught in the crosshairs of long-held biases about Travellers. Julie must get to the bottom of the mystery in order to keep them from being framed for the crime.


UK cover
Before I started reading, I had misremembered names (and the last line of the blurb didn't help) and was expecting The Pearl Thief to be about the other protagonist in Code Name Verity, Maddie. I was not emotionally prepared for it when I realised that, of course, Julie was the Scottish one, with the French grandmother and great aunt who had been sent to boarding school in Geneva. That said, if you haven't read Code Name Verity and the shadow of the future isn't hanging over Julie for you, then The Pearl Thief is a fun, coming-of-age, historical YA novel set in the 1930s with a surprisingly bisexual protagonist. Surely worth a read just for that.

The story is told from Julie's point of view, more or less in the tone of a diary, but with pretty normal prose formatting and dialogue. Other major characters are Julie's closest brother Jamie (who readers of Code Name Verity may remember) and a couple of her Scottish Traveller friends. The latter two provide a launching point for a key aspect of historical life explored in the book, namely the discrimination faced by Travellers from otherwise perfectly nice and reasonable people. Julie is a bit of a sheltered outsider who, over the course of the book's adventures and misadventures, experiences and gains a greater appreciation for the differences between her privileged life and the lives of the nomadic Travellers she befriends.

The overarching plot links the above ideas with a few mysteries and other historical details, as well as Scottish river pearls. For the most part, the events of the book aren't too dire (it's not all sunshine and roses — oh, the roses! — but the main point of comparison is World War II) although there are some tense moments. There are also injustices which can hardly be said to be cheerful. But overall this was a fun and enjoyable read that I had difficulty putting down. I highly recommend it to fans of historical YA and of Wein's other books (especially Code Name Verity). In many ways The Pearl Thief made me want to reread Code Name Verity, but it's probably just as well that I own it as a paperback residing on another continent since I don't quite need the heartbreak right now.

5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2017, Bloomsbury UK / Disney-Hyperion US
Series: Code Name Verity universe, first book so far chronologically, fourth to be published
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Mostly, this book made me want to read Code Name Verity again. I'd forgotten how awesome Julie was as a character. This book was amazing and I loved it, but not as amazing as Code Name Verity was. I think it would take a lot to beat Code Name Verity though.

The story was so good though. It really showed prejudice but also in a way that showed the privalidge that Julie had. I think it was especially interesting because it showed the Traveller's feeling annoyed when Julie did things for them, even when there really no choice for her in certain cases. I think it really helps show that even though we have the best of intentions, we still have so much privilege and we have to acknowledge it. It's definitely one of those cases where having a book about prejudice written from the point of view of a privileged white girl can actually address the issues in a good way.

The mystery was really good too. I love how Wein makes you think that you know what happened, at least to a certain extent and then throws in a new piece of evidence that completely changes everything. It wasn't as big a reveal as with Code Name Verity, but it was still pretty awesome.

I definitely need to read Code Name Verity again now.

I've been a huge fan of Elizabeth Wein's books since Code Name Verity, and think she's one of the most powerful storytellers writing these days. The Pearl Thief is a change of pace, in a way, from some of Wein's other books: ostensibly a young adult mystery story featuring Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart but a book which quickly reveals nuances and layers. Home from boarding school, Julie is returning to her ancestral home in Perthshire in Scotland for one last summer following the death of her grandfather. Far more than a mere mystery (Julie is knocked unconscious early on in the book, and the story of a missing scholar cataloguing the grandfather's treasures), this is a pithy and sensitive exploration of an idealistic, impulsive and intelligent young woman catapulting into a world of danger, social prejudices and family expectations. Delightful, warm and vividly entertaining.

A wonderful story, brimming with strong, believable characters, a tangled mystery, intrigue and missing family heirlooms in the summer before the Second World War. Set in Scotland, this is also an atmospheric, crumbling big house mystery.

Also, for anyone who loved Code Name Verity, prepare to be delighted by more of Julie!

For me, I found that this book wasn't fully my cup of tea. I didn't find anything wrong with the writing or anything like that, in fact she actually had really nice writing. It was just that I couldn't bring myself to finish the book, every time I sat down to read it, I would get distracted. This isn't anything against the author or the book, just that it wasn't the book of me.

Review will be online shortly (in my next newsletter - will update this link when it's published)

I'm trying to decide how I felt about this book. I'm still unsure. I have read a few books by this author now, and I have liked them all a whole lot. And I was pretty excited about reading this one, since it is the prequel to Code Name Verity. But, well, I didn't love it. Aw. And I'm so disappointed about that. But I did like it. Mostly.

I just had some things that I didn't like about it. I'm not sure how to describe it all. But I shall try. First I must admit to remember just about zero details about Code Name Verity. Gosh. It hasn't been that long since I read it. Okay, four years already, ack. And so I don't remember any of the details about the main girl. Hmph.

Which makes me so sad, because now I'm even more curious about her, having read this book. Hmph. Thinking about maybe re-reading it, but I'm not sure I would love it as much this time around, and I'm not really sure I want to read it again, with that ending. Ugh. But yeah, I did enjoy that earlier book a whole lot. But anyway. This one. I enjoyed the plot a whole bunch. I found the mystery to be all kinds of interesting and horrible and I liked reading about it so much. I just. I didn't like the romance. At all. I shall write more about that soon. But I did like Julie, for the most part. She was pretty sweet and I loved getting to know her. Her family was the best too. I adored them all. The other characters in this book were pretty interesting too, most of the time.

I'm giving this book three stars. Because I had some issues with it. Aw. But I also did enjoy the story. I found the mystery to be all kinds of awesome. I loved trying to figure out who it was that had hurt Julie, that made her lose her memory of it, and put her in the hospital for days. Wish it had focused more on that, but I enjoyed it even so. It was so interesting to read about. Loved reading about how she got hurt, and how she healed, and who helped her. It was pretty awesome to figure out. And written really well too.

I did like the writing in this book. It was easy to read. Though I didn't really understand some of the words at times. Hmph. But still, the writing was good. There is a second mystery in this book as well, because a man has gone missing. And that was all kinds of interesting to read about too. So many clues, yet not that easy to figure it all out even so. This book is a bit too much disgusting at times, lol, with how a dead body was found. Bothered me a little. It wasn't too bad, but yeah, just a little too many details about it all. Ack.

There are a bunch of things about this book that I enjoyed. Like the time period it was set in. So exciting and interesting to read about. And the place too. Sigh. It seemed like such an awesome place. And ahh, fishing for pearls. It sounded so amazing and I did enjoy reading about it a whole bunch. And reading about the Travellers too. I hated how they were treated by some people. It was horrible. But they were such amazing characters to read about. I loved getting to know all of them. They were pretty special.

There are so many people in this book. There is this one librarian. At times I hated her. But at times I really loved her too. She's a bit special, and I loved that about her. But gosh. Julie could be so mean about it at times. At least she understood when she was being mean, though, but yeah. It bothered me. Julie has a lot of brothers. We only get to read about two of them, but oh gosh, they were both awesome and sweet and I loved getting to know them too. I loved her mother and grandmother too. So awesome.

There are also two siblings that she gets to know. Ellen and Euan. I adored getting to read about them both and I loved them both so much. Was a bit harder to love Ellen, as she wasn't all that nice at first, but I did end up liking her a lot. I just wish we could have gotten to know Euan a whole bunch more. Sigh. I felt like he could have been such an amazing character, because of something that happens with him, but yeah, this book didn't have much about him at all, which was a bit disappointing. Aw. I did love them both.

Okay. So. Time to talk spoilers. About why I did not love this book. About why I'm so conflicted about my feelings for it. Sigh. I need to spoil about it, because I have to write about it, because it's bothering me. One thing that bothered me a lot in this book was the scenes of almost rape. Both Julie and Ellen almost gets raped. At different times, by different older men. It was all kinds of disturbing and I wish it hadn't been included. They weren't raped, but almost, and it wasn't good to read about. Made me so sad too.

And then there is the romance in this book. Or lack of romance, to be more correct. The ending isn't all that happy, but it is a good ending, I suppose, unless you know what happens in Code Name Verity. Haha. But yeah. The romance in this book wasn't very good. I mean, I loved that Julie likes boys and girls. But I hated beyond words that she kisses six different people in this book. And she also starts a relationship with a man above thirty, while she isn't yet sixteen. That is simply not okay It bothered me.

Sigh. Okay. Not sharing more about that. Just had to write my thoughts about it. Still giving this book a three star, though those issues of mine makes me want to give it two stars. Aw. Also because I found the book to be a little bit boring, but yeah. I did love a lot of the plot in this one, and so I feel like a three star is the best. Probably. I'm unsure. I wish this book had been better, though. But I also did like it for the most part; it was good. I think you should all read The Pearl Thief; as it was pretty interesting and mysterious.