I’ve finished up reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What a delightful book! I’m so glad I picked it up the day before my surgery. It saw me through and then some. Of course, the subject matter, the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Germans during World War II, immediately captured my interest. My own novel, The Still Voice, takes place in Germany during the war.

I laughed out loud when I came to this line from the central character’s publisher in the Guernsey story: “Strings of anecdotes don’t make a book.” The first draft of my manuscript was a string of anecdotes culled from relatives about their wartime experiences. A book they did not make. Several drafts later I had San Francisco author Adair Lara critique the manuscript. She sent me an email, effusive with praise and including several pages of suggested changes--some of which I even took! She did write: “You have two books in one. You must change the ending.”

I’ve changed the ending. But I do still love the original, as it winds up with the romance that flourished between two people who became my parents.

There is one anecdote from the original ending that is dear to me. When my parents met in Wiesbaden in 1947, my father owned a huge shepherd dog said to have been a member of Erwin Rommel’s Canine Corps. My father would tuck love notes to my mother into Ivan’s collar. The dog would walk them from my father’s office to Mother’s home. One day, a friend of my father’s saw Ivan board a bus. Apparently, the dog had previously ridden the bus with his master and figured out a quicker way to deliver his notes! When the driver told Ivan, “Not you. People only,” Ivan bounded to the rear of the bus and climbed aboard. A smart but lazy character, that was Ivan.

If I ever get to write a second book, I hope I can include the romance that flourished in the rubble of WWII--and, of course, Ivan.