I am more than happy to invite my five favorite fictional characters. Let's see. First on my list is Sam Gamgee from The Lord of The Rings. Sam is a beautiful character; in him, we find the profound heroism of an ordinary person. He epitomizes the saying that courage isn't not being afraid, courage is going anyway. I just love that.

[ The Nightingale ]ended up being a huge undertaking - a daunting amount of research on a subject that many people know intimately, a country I had not yet been to when I first started planning the book, an entire war.

I absolute adore epic journeys that require a protagonist to fight for every victory in the hopes of finding triumph.

In the end, there's only one thing you can believe. Bodies are honest; they don't lie.

The woman who led [downed airmen] was named Andrée De Jongh and her story - one of heroism and peril and astounding courage - became the inspiration for my novel.

Thematically, we're both [with Kristin Hannah ] interested in women's experiences and women's stories, and until now, you've mostly dealt with how it feels to be a wife/mother/sister/name your poison in today's world. But this story [The Nightingale ] is told from the perspective of two sisters during the German occupation of France in WWII.

I think The Nightingale is my best, most mature, most moving novel, but maybe that's just because I love these characters. I love the setting.