The description says that your book SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG is “based on the extraordinary true stories of an American socialite and a British secret agent”. Were the names kept the same? What can you tell readers about any research you did for this historical novel? Are you a history buff? I’m a huge history buff, and all my novels are an excuse to keeping writing the research papers I always loved in school. In SISTERS OF NIGHT AND FOG, the names of the women were kept the same, and I tried to keep as close to the true, findable history as possible. (I disclose any deviations in the Author’s Note.) From memoir, to biography, to online archives, including the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Violette Szabo Museum, there was a wealth from which to draw. I already had a strong base in the research of the time because of my previous novel, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN – about SOE/OSS agent, Virginia Hall – but I had to go deeper. One of the most valuable components of my process is talking to living family members or friends of my protagonists, when possible. I was able to do so, and…

As the dawn breaks, she turns her thoughts to the future, imagining the map of France dotted with stops on her circuit. The main region of her new network is located throughout the Massif Central—the highlands of central and southern France. It is remote and mountainous, and only the locals have a clear understanding of the geography. She had argued with Vera about stationing her in a mountain region. “Send me back to Lyon,” Virginia had said. “If you want to be a kamikaze, enlist with the Japanese.” “Then anywhere else, but not mountains. I can’t face that again.” “Then that’s precisely why you must.” Mountains. It’s impossible to articulate what they represent to her. The terror of the crossing in winter—with a prosthetic leg—was bad enough, but add the guilt over abandoning her people, the Gestapo breathing down her neck, and the knowledge the betrayer was still at large, and it crushed her. She had never experienced a terror like she felt on every level during that crossing, but even then, she hadn’t seen with her own eyes the murder of her people. Until today. The air feels as thin as it did in the Pyrenees. It takes her…