The Belgian Girls follows two young women resisting German occupation in Belgium, one during World War I as an intelligence agent, and the other during World War II involved in resistance efforts. What interested you about portraying courage as something that can look different from one person to another?

My first book, Women Heroes of World War II, includes the most heroic stories of Second World War resistance that I could find at the time, including the one that inspired me as a young adult: Corrie ten Boom, the devout Dutch resister who was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for hiding Jewish people from the Nazis. I always wondered if I would have the guts to do what she did, to put my own life on the line for the sake of conviction. And as I saw Women Heroes of WWII gain a fairly large audience, I thought that perhaps some young readers, when encountering the book’s stories of remarkable courage, might entertain the same self-doubt I had. That’s why, while writing The Belgian Girls, I deliberately gave the fictional Julienne a quiet, reserved disposition, to illustrate that courage is a choice, not a personality type.

Gabrielle Petit’s personality was basically how she is portrayed in the novel!

Family history becomes an important bridge between the two timelines. What interested you about exploring the ways one generation’s experiences can shape another?

When one of my sons dressed up as WWI American hero, Sergeant Alvin York, I asked my WWII vet father to identify which historical character he was trying to portray. He guessed immediately. That was the first time I realized part of the Greatest Generation’s alacrity in signing up for the military after Pearl Harbor was that they had been raised on stories of the previous war’s heroes. Then, while writing my books on the two world wars, I discovered a generational inspiration factor among Europeans. For instance, WWII special agent Pearl Witherington, who led an enormous team of French fighters against the Nazis, was inspired by Louise de Bettignies, the French First World War spy Kate Quinn wrote about in The Alice Network. And as I point out in The Belgian Girls, Andree de Jongh, founder of the Comet Line, was inspired by Gabrielle Petit and Edith Cavell, both of whom worked against the German occupation of Belgium during World War I.

What challenges come with placing fictional characters alongside people who actually lived through these events?

Actually, it was great fun. An author of nonfiction has to make certain that every sentence is absolutely factual. For once, I was free to make things up, to fill in the blanks of what I already knew about Gabrielle’s life and work and everything I already knew about the young women who worked on the Comet Line.

Why do you think stories about women’s roles in wartime resistance continue to resonate so strongly with readers?

Everyone loves a good underdog story, and it can be stated that women in the first half of the 20th century were underdogs, often considered less valuable, less qualified, and less capable than men. But because of the strange reality created by war, women rose to challenges not normally afforded to them. And those who prospered in those unusual circumstances continue to inspire us today.

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