Chapters 7, 8 and 9 have the distinct advantage of being mostly action and character development. Because of that, there was fairly little research I had to do since I was building on research I’d already done.
However, the major issue I had with these chapters was the timeline. There are oceans of information on what happened in World War II and dealing with that can be difficult. For instance, Chapter 7 starts June 3, 1944 and we all know that D-Day happened on June 6.
I did do that on purpose, wanting to wait to show the reaction D-Day had on those in the story until after Sam was relatively settled. That and there’s the whole birthday dinner invitation that Megan receives in chapter 9, which would not have happened if German society was reeling under the effects of D-Day.
Also, I have a particular end point I’m trying to build to. So watching the timeline is very important. Having Megan’s boat sink in late 1942 has been difficult to manage since it is stretching the boundaries of disbelief to have an American girl keep hidden for as long as she has.
Fact: Sulfonamide or Sulfa Powder was the first antimicrobial drug we had. It was discovered in 1932 and soldiers during WWII carried it in powder and tablet form to ward off infections. We use penicillin today, but this was the common treatment back then.
Fiction: Honestly, I couldn’t decide what a 1940’s German first aid kit would look like. I could find all sorts of information on field kits, but Megan isn’t in the field and this would be a home kit. So I decided to stick to steel — keep things dry — even though I’m pretty sure steel was something they collected for the war.
AJMaguire 