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.

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.

To be honest, I wrote so many drafts of this book [ The Nightingale ] and changed the characters so many times; the real surprise is that I finished the book at all.

[ 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.

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

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.

Sight is one of the most easily deceived senses. I could make a coin disappear and your eyes would believe it gone, even if it were merely up my sleeve.