In Anna’s Shadow, a surgeon finds herself caught in the middle of a man’s search for a woman from his past after leaving Doctors Without Borders to care for her aunt. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

­­­The inspiration for Anna’s Shadow stems from a true love story and an article in The­ Oprah Magazine.

In the early years of World War II, a young German officer was billeted with a German family. A portrait of their daughter hung in the family’s living room. The officer was so smitten by the young woman―she was not in the house at the time of his stay―he vowed that if he survived the war, he would return and ask for her hand in marriage. When I met the officer many years later here in Ottawa, he was already in his senior years and has since died. For many years, I stored this anecdote in the back of my mind, intending to one day work it into a novel. However, I was at a loss about how to build it into a full-length novel until I saw an article about the Juliet Club in Verona, Italy, in The Oprah Magazine. It was Oprah’s article about a group of volunteers at the Club who answer letters from broken-hearted men and women which fired my imagination and which was instrumental in helping me create my story.

What character did you enjoy writing for? Was there one that was more challenging to write for?

I enjoyed creating every character, including the unpleasant ones. There were no challenges. However, I would like to add that readers of my post-WWII childhood memoir, I Stood Among The Ruins And Cried, will know that I had an unhappy relationship with my father. In Anna’s Shadow my female protagonist, Sofia, has an enviable, close relationship with her dad. With that relationship, I created the kind of bond between father and daughter that I never enjoyed and which I would have liked to have experienced. I found healing in developing the loving father-daughter kinship as the story unfolded. As an aside, just like Sofia’s father, my father was a detective in the police force as well.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Several themes run through the story. Sofia, a traumatized orthopedic surgeon on leave from Doctors Without Borders, often ponders the meaning of coincidence and fate; the long-lasting power of memories; the tense relationship with her mother, and the question of whether a person can fall in love again after the shocking loss of a loved one. However, the most important theme is an illustration and a reminder of the cruelty and destruction caused by a war, in this case, WWII. The devastation leaves soldiers, and civilians marred by deep wounds, visible and invisible, that take decades to heal. It’s for this very reason that I label Anna’s Shadow my anti-war novel.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

I’m, at the moment, working on the second volume of a new series, a combination of women’s commercial fiction and cozy murder mystery, working title: The Orla Griffin Buddy Series. Novels of friendship, food, and love. And murder. I’m holding back with the release of book one in the series until next year as I do not wish to compete with the recent release of Anna’s Shadow. However, if readers wish to delve into another love and mystery novel of mine, I recommend V for Vanished, a novel full of passion, heartbreak, and suspense.

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