I don't base my books on my life (thank goodness) and I don't pick the topic first. In fact, the topic picks me - via a question I can't answer as a mom, a wife, a woman, an American. I find myself wondering "What if..." and it blossoms into a whole novel.

What she couldn't put into word was what had happened in between to change her from one person into the other

What if the one I choose to discount is one who has been truly hurt?

After all, the only way to communicate is to find someone who can comprehend; the only way to be forgiven is to find someone who is willing to forgive.

Torn between fear and something that resembled love, she wrestled with questions she never dreamed she would face: How could she leave? Then again, how could she stay?

Then they scrambled through the window and into the darkness, determined to turn themselves into what they were not.

How can you be a survivor, when you can't even remember the war?