Galina Vromen's Hill of Secrets shows the human story within Los Alamos, New Mexico, during WWII

What happens when varied people, all with their own personal troubles, converge in an unfamiliar location for a hidden purpose, especially when the government imposes a frustrating code of silence? In Vromen’s twisty, infectiously readable debut, secrets are simmering within Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1943, and the Manhattan Project’s development is just one of them.

An art restorer with a chemistry background, Christine Sharp is a trailing spouse who feels sidelined and neglected after relocating to support her PhD scientist husband. Seeking distraction, she befriends 16-year-old ingenue Gertie Koppel, the daughter of German Jewish refugees.

While Gertie’s physicist father, Kurt, loyally serves America in Los Alamos’ Tech Area, his wife Sarah, a movingly three-dimensional character, ruminates on difficult memories.

With young love, a clandestine affair, intense guilt, and suppressed yearnings circulating in this high-pressure environment, the storyline is highly dramatic, and some aspects are far-fetched. Still, the novel offers more than soap opera fare for Oppenheimer fans. By the sobering conclusion, readers will be left pondering the characters’ ethical dilemmas, which defy easy answers.

Hill of Secrets will be published by Amazon Publishing's Lake Union in October. Amazon Prime members can grab it for free on Kindle during September as one of the month's First Reads picks. I wrote this review for Booklist's June 1 issue.