Honestly, I really didn't want to take on World War II France, but when I came across the story of a nineteen-year-old Belgian woman who created an escape route out of Nazi-Occupied France, I was hooked.

All life's a risk, that's what makes it interesting.

I do not often follow my characters off on tangents or change my story on a whim. I have an outline which I follow quite sternly...for a good long while. Then it turns out in some way to be insurmountably wrong and I am forced to re-think every component. Usually at this point I throw hundreds of pages away.

I'd extend an invitation to Lisbeth Salander. She would definitely shake the party up and get it started. I think she is hands down one of the most original, innovative, kickass female fictional characters ever.

People forget that old women were young once, but d'you think we old women forget? In my heart, I'm still thirty.

My next guest [ for party with five favorite fictional characters] would be Scarlett from Gone With The Wind. I mean, come on, I have to know if she ever got Rhett back.

I am one of those authors who believes (perhaps foolishly) that she is in complete control of the story.