My first novels were born of my love of music, and the years of research I put into it. So many wonderful stories that were untold, or undiscovered. Particularly about the role that women and young girls had in shaping or participating in music.

But as I became more and more of a writer, I began to look outside music to the world in general. My strong, feisty heroines who had to deal with many of the same but also some different challenges in life from today’s young adults weren’t always musicians.

Anastasia Romanova was the first. I have always been fascinated with that story, the tragedy of a beautiful family, doomed to destruction by history.

Then comes Molly, whom I hope readers will love as much as I do. A parlor maid who is forced out of her job and must make something of herself to preserve both her self esteem, and her family’s livelihood. Molly gets caught up in the popular outrage over the conditions of the soldiers in the Crimea, and stows away to go with Florence Nightingale and her nurses. In the Shadow of the Lamp will be published in January, 2011.

War time is no time for the diversions of music. But love, and honor, and life and death struggles are the proving points that help Molly grow into a woman.