I’d never read any story like it—much less a true one!—in which it was a woman who went off to war while her husband stayed behind to hold down the fort. A woman who stepped onto a battlefield and was not only treated as an equal, but was revered and respected as a fearless leader. A woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands. In all my years researching and writing historical fiction, I have never come across such a bold, bawdy, brazen woman. The fact that she really lived, and I had the honor of telling her story, is something for which I will always be grateful.
