It felt like an oversight to me, something that needed to be corrected. They [women who hid Jewish children] deserved to be understood and remembered.

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 love women being the heroes of the piece. There is just something so dramatic and important about this story [The Nightingale ].

With The Nightingale, I had been kicking the idea around for years. I was frightened to write it because on the surface it seems so different for me.

The material world is simply an expression of the mind; that's what so many fail to see. We're so dependent on what is before us that we discount our intuition. Yet if one dismisses instinct, how can one understand or believe in a world that exists beyond one's sight?

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.

There were others, women with stories that were told in a quieter voice: women who hid Jewish children in their homes, putting themselves directly in harm's way to save others. Too many of them paid a terrible, unimaginable price for their heroism. And like so many women in wartime, they were largely forgotten after the war's end.There were no parades for them, very few medals, and almost no mention in the history books.