It's 1854 and sixteen-year-old Molly would give anything to change her circumstances as a lowly servant in a posh London house. So when she hears of an opportunity to join the nurses who will be traveling with Florence Nightingale to the Crimea, she jumps at the chance. The work is grueling, the hospital conditions deplorable, and Miss Nightingale a demanding teacher. Before long, the plight of British soldiers becomes more than just a mission of mercy as Molly finds that she's falling in love with both a dashing young doctor and a soldier who has joined the army to be near her. But with the battle raging ever nearer, can Molly keep the two men she cares for from harm? A love story to savor, and a fascinating behind-the-scenes imagining of the woman who became known as "the lady with the lamp."
I've had a varied work life, writing advertising copy for agencies in New York and London and doing marketing and fundraising for arts organizations. After graduating from Smith College in 1976, I moved to London, where I lived for ten years. I returned to New York with my children in 1986, and soon after that started graduate school. A lifelong writer, I turned to historical fiction after finishing my PhD in music history at Yale University in 1999. I saw it as a way to bring my deep love of music and history to a wider public.
After publishing two adult historical novels with Simon & Schuster, I turned to young adult fiction with The Musician's Daughter, published by Bloomsbury Children's, followed by Anastasia's Secret, about the youngest grand duchess in the doomed Romanov family. In April, 2012, In the Shadow of the Lamp will be published by Bloomsbury. It's the story of a young parlormaid who stows away to go with Florence Nightingale and her nurses to the Crimea.
