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

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.

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.

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.

I read a ton of fiction - historical, contemporary, literary, commercial, I love it all.

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

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.