After Ellis…

The galleys for A FALL OF MARIGOLDS arrived yesterday, which means I have one last look at the pages before the book is sent to the printer. But while I am putting the last touches on this manuscript before it is published in February – just four months away! – I am already much involved with the next project.

After spending the last year in 1911 and one the bit of land that is Ellis Island, I am now moving forward a few years to World War II, the London Blitz, and the evacuation of a million of its children to the countryside.  I’ve just returned from a research trip to the UK with my mom, where I had the opportunity to interview eight people who were children and teenagers during the war and who remember well the influx of young Londoners into their villages, or taking the train out of the city to live with people whom they’d never met, or running for cover from the Luftwaffe bombers and Doodlebugs and rockets. Their stories amazed me and I can’t wait to incorporate these details into the book, which is tentatively titled, THE BRIDE’S BOX. For now, here is a mini photo gallery of this incredible trip. These scenes will take place early in the book… Thoughts so far?

The pastoral Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, the place where my 15-year-old heroine and her seven-year-old sister will be evacuated to out of London…

The town I will evacuate her and her sister to, a real and lovely place called Stow-on-the-Wold…

The bench just outside the Methodist church where she will make the plans that will change everything…

The cottage where she and her sister will be sent which I will call Thistle House…

The path she will take in the middle of the night to steal away back to London…

The station where she will wait in the dark until dawn and the first train back to the city…