Alex Pototsky

IRENE’S SECRET DIARY is the best kind of historical novel - a propulsive thriller that weaves enough fascinating facts to fill a textbook, while never forgetting to fill every page with action, romance, and humor. Stretching across the frantic final years of the Second World War, IRENE follows young metallurgical professor Irene Matchuska as she’s brought into the clandestine world of the Los Alamos headquarters of the Manhattan Project, tasked with developing JUMBO - a massive steel shell big enough to contain the test of the world’s first nuclear bomb. Under massive pressure to pull off the unprecedented project, Irene has to deal with German spies, gender discrimination, and her burgeoning, forbidden feelings for her project partner, the injured war hero Carl Sonora. Famous figures of scientific history (such as a memorably fly-fishing Niels Bohr and the father of the atomic bomb himself, “Oppie”) rub shoulders with their fictional contemporaries who are so well-developed I frequently found myself googling them to see if they *actually* existed as well. The world of Los Alamos is obviously immaculately researched, but the author is also clearly writing from a place of immense affection - both for the scientists and the motley mix of European backgrounds they represent, as well as for the Native American natives who live in the communities alongside them. IRENE’S makes sure to capture every angle of the community tasked with making the bomb, from the legendary scientists, to the hardscrabble builders, to the bartenders and homemakers who kept the entire operation running. But the center of the narrative is Irene herself, a wonderfully 3-dimensional woman who represents an entire burgeoning generation of “liberated women” coming into their own in the middle of the 20th century. Her will-they-won’t-they relationship with Commander Sonora keeps you turning the page, but it’s her maturation as a scientist that sticks with you long after the story is finished. Would make an excellent limited series!