It's just a weird idea to me because each book is a complete universe unto itself, so why would I want this other universe from this other galaxy that has nothing to do with mine? That's how I really feel about it. Let's be honest - I'm still the writer, so certain things will be common denominators. But that I just want to keep natural and not studied.

I think that's great - I just try not to be one of those people. I find the more I think about it, the less free I feel when I write and when I work.

Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.

It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.

I did a lot of reading of first person accounts from Koreans and combatants and aid workers. And I spoke to relatives. A lot of wonderful photographs were made available to me from that period - 1950-1956 - and those were given to me by a Korean newspaper in Seoul. Ruined villages, refugees streaming through a river valley, GI's and orphans and orphanages, those tiny details that you can only see in a picture.

In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.

Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?