We can’t quite remember that first spark that led us to twentieth-century France for our third novel, but once we started diving into the ocean of books, memoirs, letters, and online databases on the two world wars and the Swinging Sixties, we discovered enough fascinating material for a lifetime of novels. While our main characters are fictional, the historical setting in which their stories take place is （as always） as accurate as possible, which often means hours spent chasing down all those tiny details and contemporary accounts that bring a novel to life. This space isn’t large enough to list all of our research sources, but for more absorbing stories of life inside the Paris Ritz, we happily refer readers to The Hotel on Place Vend?me by Tilar J. Mazzeo. For insight into the operation and daily life of French Resistance organizations, Lynne Olson’s detailed and riveting Madame Fourcade’s Secret War is a must-read. If anyone wants to read more about life behind the lines in World War I, Helen McPhail’s The Long Silence gives an excellent overview, while Ben Macintyre’s The Englishman’s Daughter provides an intimate and harrowing picture of life in one village in Picardy under German rule: readers will notice more than a passing resemblance between our Major Erich Hoffmeister and his real-life counterpart, Major Karl Evers, who really did demand that the chickens lay a particular number of eggs per day.
A vigorous nod to the Inn at Palmetto Bluff on the South Carolina coast for giving us beautiful shelter and sustenance （of the caffeinated and bubbly varieties） while we plotted out this book, and to the sunshine of the Florida panhandle for sustaining us as we finished our final revisions and typed The End. For the Unibrain, it is always work, work, work, because we believe in suffering for our craft. Thanks also to the Boden website for providing us stress-shopping during those trying times in an author’s life. Our closets thank you; the delivery man doesn’t.
There’s nothing scarier than sending a book off into the world （see stress-shopping, above）。 Thank you so much to all of the wonderful readers, bloggers, reviewers, librarians, and booksellers who make what we do possible. We appreciate your support, and your emails, Facebook posts, and Instagram stories, more than we can say. Huge hugs to our fellow authors, who have been there with us through characters that won’t cooperate and midnight trains to New Canaan for book events. We love you even if your name doesn’t begin with W. （Kristina McWorris, you’ll always be an honorary W to us!）
Finally, our grateful thanks （as always） to our husbands, children, and assorted pets for sharing your homes with our imaginary characters, and allowing us the time and space to get them on the page.