Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

 Every now and again while doing research for Scandalous Women I come across a story that is truly inspiring. I’ve wanted to write the story of Noor Inayat Khan for some time but work and other fascinating women have come along and Noor has been put on the back burner. Khan’s story is truly inspirational.   She was a wartime British secret agent who was the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France by the Special Operations Executive (SOE).   Unfortunately, she was arrested and eventually executed by the Gestapo. Noor un-Nisa Inayat Khan was born on New Year's Day 1914 in Moscow. She was the first child of Hazrat Inayat Khan and his American wife, Ora Ray Baker (Ameena Begum). She was of royal descent from Tipu Sultan, the last Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. He refused to submit to British rule and was killed in battle in 1799. Khan's father was a musician and the founder of the Sufi Order of the West and a teacher of Universal Sufism. He move...

Title: Mr. Churchill's Secretary Author:  Susan Elia MacNeal Publisher: Random House Publishing Group Publication date: 4/3/2012 Bought by the Reviewer (aka moi) Pages: 384 Synopsis:  London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for codebreaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machi...

Title:  WOMEN HEROES OF WORLD WAR II : 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance and Rescue Author:  Kathryn J. Atwood Publisher:  Chicago Review Press Pub Date:  March 1, 2011 "These stories will restore your faith in the human spirit and encourage us all to remember to do what is right, because it is right. Women Heroes of World War II is a must read for anyone who has ever asked themselves: 'What can I do? Can one person really make a difference?'" —Kenneth Koskodan, author of No Greater Ally; The Untold Story of Poland’s Forces in World War II “Kathryn Atwood offers a new face to World War II heroes to include young women who left traditional feminine roles to carry guns, falsify papers, and shelter the hunted.” —Rabbi Malka Drucker and Gay Block, coauthors of Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust “Inspiring accounts of the lives of women--some of them still in their teens--whose courage made a difference in the dark days of World Wa...