I love the idea of ordinary women making extraordinary sacrifices.

The woman who led [downed airmen] was named Andrée De Jongh and her story - one of heroism and peril and astounding courage - became the inspiration for my novel.

In doing the research, I found myself consumed by a single, overwhelming question, as relevant today as it was seventy years ago: When would I, as a wife and mother, risk my life - and more importantly, my child's life - to save a stranger? That question is at the very heart of The Nightingale. I hope that everyone who reads the novel will ask themselves the question.

Sometimes a story grabs hold of you and won't let go.

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

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

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.