The Double Life of Eve Sinclair by C.C. Humphreys

The Alice Network meets The Nightingale in this romantic and suspenseful novel about a female spy who must push herself to her very limits to save herself and everything she holds dear.

It’s 1939, and Stockholm is a sea of spies. Yet Eve Sinclair couldn’t care less. Nineteen years old, beautiful, born in Montreal into privilege and educated to do little more than make a good marriage, she appears to have succeeded when she weds handsome diplomat Richard Spence and follows him to Stockholm. But, like so much in this city, Eve will discover that her marriage is not what it seems. Raised to expect only one life, she soon finds herself thrust into another one entirely—dark, corrupt and very, very dangerous.

If Eve is going to survive her newly perilous life in a world at war, she must learn certain skills—and swiftly. Discovering a core of steel buried deep within her, she will forge that steel into a career . . . as a spy. Her talents, and her need to fight evil, will take her from luxurious Sweden to the foulest tenements of Lisbon, onto the highlands of Scotland and finally to a bridge in Norway, a detonator and an inconceivable choice.

The Double Life of Eve Sinclair is much more than a war story; it’s a tale of love, passion, grit and the resilience of the human spirit. And it’s the story of one woman who discovers she has more strength than she ever could have imagined.

Paperback, 400 pages

Published June 2, 2026 

by Doubleday Canada

4/5 stars

I had the privilege of attending an author talk when this book was released,  C.C. Humphreys spoke about his own personal connection to this story. His father was from England and his mother was a spy during the war. Knowing that going in made reading this all the more interesting, there is something different about experiencing a book when you know it is rooted in the author's own family history.

Set in 1939, the story follows Eve Sinclair, a young Montreal socialite who marries a handsome diplomat and moves to Stockholm, only to discover her marriage is not what it appears to be. Raised to expect one kind of life, she is thrust into another entirely, one that pulls her into the dangerous world of espionage during the Second World War. Watching her transformation and all the obstacles she endured gave rise to how much strength she didn't realize she had.  

World War II fiction set in Stockholm is well off the beaten path, and it was refreshing to get a view of the war from that side of things. So much WWII historical fiction covers familiar ground, France, Britain, Germany, so setting the story in neutral Sweden gave a different perspective on how the war touched even those countries trying to stay out of it.

This book was part of  my 2026 Reading Off My Shelf Challenge #28