Goodreads asked Sarah Rose:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Sarah Rose The book began in Hawaii, where I work in winter and have a lot of military friends. There is no more exclusively male domain than war, but my friends are extraordinary to me, they constantly defy what my pre-conceived notions of women in a macho culture might do. I kind of fell in love with women in the military as a topic to investigate. This was in 2015, and women were admitted into all combat roles in the US military only in 2016.

So I wondered who was the first woman in combat? Surely there was a first. Who was she? What was her story? What was her life like?

A few searches later, I found that the first woman in combat wasn't contemporary in Afghanistan or Iraq, but 75 years ago, in World War II.

There were 39 women who parachuted into combat, or sailed through a sea of U-Boats, ahead of D-Day to arm and train the French resistance.

There were female commanders in Brittany and Normandy during the battle of France. What a great story.

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