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

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.

I love what I call "re-imagining," where I throw everything up in the air and let it fall in a different way. It's not the most efficient way to write a book, but it's how I find the story.

The women of the French Resistance astounded me. Isabelle and Vianne [from The Nightingale] are my homage to those brave and forgotten women.

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.

I see the emphasis on a lot of ideas and I know that's directed at me. [Megan Chance] come up with an idea, hone it, and write it. I come up with thirty ideas, flesh each one out, research each one, come up with characters, and then decide I don't like it.

The answers are what they are. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean they aren't true.