Admit it. When you hear “female spy,” you see images of Mata Hari beguiling her hapless victims into confiding secret enemy plans. But beauty so fatally powerful can easily transform from a spy’s best weapon into her greatest liability.

Instead, to be a successful female spy, a woman needs to be outwardly ordinary, a human chameleon who can hide in plain view. She must also have brains, courage and obstinacy. An ability to react quickly to unpleasant surprises—such as concealing incriminating evidence during a Gestapo arrest—is a plus. And the capacity to withstand torture without divulging any information about your spy ring is also desirable. These are the women of D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose’s gripping account of a generation of heroes.

In 1942, the Special Operations Executive, established by Winston Churchill to organize sabotage in German territory, decided to train women to operate behind enemy lines. This decision was not the result of early feminist principles but was instead born out of necessity, since men were rare commodities in wartime. It wasn’t a popular decision either: Colonel Maurice Buckmaster had to sell his idea directly to Churchill before he could get permission to implement it. But the accomplishments of these extraordinary “ordinary” women outweighed any skepticism. They organized, trained and armed thousands of resistance fighters who, on and after D-Day, were able to divert German attention away from the beaches in Normandy.

But their story is also marked by sadness and tragedy. Betrayed by the incompetence and arrogance of their commanders and fellow agents, scores of these women died under hideous circumstances. Others survived but were scarred. 

Their deeds may have been forgotten and their names obscured, but with her book, Rose has resurrected them, so that Odette Sansom, Andrée Borrel, Lise de Baissac and their sisters in arms will be remembered and honored.

Those who know the British Regency mostly from Georgette Heyer novels of heaving bosoms and Beau Brummel-ish heroes, or from Jane Austen’s witty satires on British manners, may be surprised to discover that the real Regency decade (1811 to 1820) was a period of intense political and social unrest, both nationally and internationally; of cavalier (in both senses) cruelty and contempt; of crushing taxes, tariffs and starvation versus extravagance; and of addiction (often prescribed and socially consumed), organized crime and pornography. It was also the setting for a golden age of London theater and art; for a fanatic explosion in sports both elegant and excruciatingly bloody; for literal Dickensian child poverty and criminal exploitation; and eventually for (almost redemptory) scientific and technical innovation.

Morrison’s well annotated and engagingly anecdotal book is a worthy romp through one of the most licentious, libertarian and obviously paradoxical decades in British history. Warfare, which was almost continual from Napoleon to New Orleans, required immense funding, while the Irish and other colonials were alternately taxed and denied relief. It was also a great era of expansion in India and the Middle East, which Lord Elgin saw as artistic reclamation and Lord Byron considered blatant looting.

Morrison reminds us that what literature classes refer to as the Romantic poets were also prominent social revolutionaries, writing against obvious profiteering Parliament laws and in favor of universal rights, suffrage and prison reform. It didn’t come cheap, either. Shelley was the near-victim of an attempted assassination, Byron lost his life fighting for Greek independence from Turkey, and newspaper publisher Leigh Hunt spent two years in jail for his scathing criticisms of the Prince Regent, which probably lead to his early death.

Morrison also offers a timely debunking of current misnomers. “Luddites” were not anti-tech—only anti the machines that stole their jobs during the industrial revolution. And despite the way Victorian has come to mean “prudish,” the 19th-century Brits (including those from the Regency era) endorsed sadomasochistic floggings at boys’ schools, incest (which was more socially acceptable than masturbation) and celebrity affairs. The Regent himself, and his brother and successor William IV, were famously dissolute and shared an almost hereditary weakness for actresses. William had at least 10 illegitimate children, most of whom survived with titles and a few honors, but of course, they could not inherit the throne. And thus, the brothers’ niece Victoria ushered in Britain’s next era.