1–What is the title of your latest release? THE FORGOTTEN COTTAGE 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? In the dusty corners of an abandoned English cottage, Audrey discovers there’s more to her beloved grandmother’s life than she ever imagined. Told with the alternating point-of-view of Audrey in 2014, and her great-grandmother, Emilie, during the First World War, this family saga celebrates the courage of underestimated women. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? North Yorkshire is my very favorite place in England. While much of the book moves beyond the county, and England itself, Audrey’s story remains in a small village that represents much of what I love about the area. 4–Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life? I think Audrey and I would get along well, but Emilie is much more intelligent and well-read than me. I have no doubt she’d be very bored with the conversation! 5–What are three words that describe your protagonist? Emilie is inquisitive, foolhardy, and empathetic. 6–What’s something you learned while writing this book? What a ploughman’s lunch is. 7–Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done? I’d love…

In the years after World War I, cataclysmic changes in society were shifting traditional roles and expectations, with women demanding more independence and a greater say in determining their own futures.  This month’s selection of titles illuminates the unfolding of these changes through the lives of several determined women, both wholly fictional and fictionalized. In AT SUMMER’S END by Courtney Ellis, after winning a British Royal Legion art contest, painter Alberta Preston is determined to pursue an artistic career, despite her family who tries to push her into a conventional life of marriage and family.  When she receives an invitation from Julian Napier, Earl of Wakeford, to spend the summer painting at the family’s country home, Castle Braemore, she sees this as her chance to prove she can become a successful professional artist despite her gender. But the Great War has wrought serious changes upon the Napier family and their ancestral estate is near bankruptcy.  Disfigured by battle wounds, suffering from traumatic stress, the earl remains in his rooms, seeing no one but his widowed older sister Gwen.  Bertie makes alliances with Julian’s younger brother Roland, who actually runs the estate, his sister Cece, and gradually is able to work…