BOOK REPORT.....

The Atomic City Girls - Janet Beard

Product Description(Amazon.com)
“What you see here, what you hear here, what you do here, let it stay here.”
In November 1944, eighteen-year-old June Walker boards an unmarked bus, destined for a city that doesn’t officially exist. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has sprung up in a matter of months—a town of trailers and segregated houses, 24-hour cafeterias, and constant security checks. There, June joins hundreds of other young girls operating massive machines whose purpose is never explained. They know they are helping to win the war, but must ask no questions and reveal nothing to outsiders.
The girls spend their evenings socializing and flirting with soldiers, scientists, and workmen at dances and movies, bowling alleys and canteens. June longs to know more about their top-secret assignment and begins an affair with Sam Cantor, the young Jewish physicist from New York who oversees the lab where she works and understands the end goal only too well, while her beautiful roommate Cici is on her own mission: to find a wealthy husband and escape her sharecropper roots. Across town, African-American construction worker Joe Brewer knows nothing of the government’s plans, only that his new job pays enough to make it worth leaving his family behind, at least for now. But a breach in security will intertwine his fate with June’s search for answers.
When the bombing of Hiroshima brings the truth about Oak Ridge into devastating focus, June must confront her ideals about loyalty, patriotism, and war itself. 
Paperback: 384 pages 
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (February 6, 2018) 
Language: English 
ISBN-10: 0062666711 
ISBN-13: 978-0062666710

MY THOUGHTS:  This is my book club's choice for April.  When I first started this book I couldn't figure out what the heck they were doing at Oak Ridge.  Building a whole city and hundreds of people and buildings.  Plus it all was top secret.  This book has romance, mystery and a little revenge mixed in.  June strikes out on her own to get a job at Oak Ridge.  While there June meets Cici and they become room mates.  Cici is after a rich husband and June is just there to be independent.  But June gets curious about what they are making here.   So she strikes up a chat with Sam, a physicist working at Oak Ridge.  They soon become lovers and Sam hires June as his secretary.  About 3/4th's of the way through the book I figured out what they were building.  I give this book 5.....

This book is for 2 of my reading challenges.......
Outdo Yourself Challenge
Try Something New Challenge