I’m often asked how long it takes me to write a book. The length of time obviously varies, but on average it’s two to three years. Not so with Last Hope Island. I first got the idea for it more than a decade ago and spent about a year doing research in the United Kingdom, on the Continent, and elsewhere. At that point, however, I decided to stop for a while. Focusing as it does on Britain and much of occupied Europe during World War II, the book was far more complex than any I had written till then. At that juncture in my writing career, it was, quite frankly, too much for me.

So I put it aside and went to work on other projects, including Citizens of London and Those Angry Days. Last Hope Island, though, kept drawing me back. It was such a compelling story—one that had never been fully told—with an enormous cast of the most colorful characters I’ve ever encountered. Another attraction was the light it sheds on the evolution of today’s tumultuous relationship between Britain and the rest of Europe. So, after writing Those Angry Days, I plunged back into exploring the subject, and this time it worked. I did a considerable amount of new research, adding to the storehouse of material I had gathered years before. I also drew on research I had accumulated for other books I’ve written. For a writer, one of the advantages of focusing on a particular subject and time period in one’s books, as I have done with Britain and World War II, is the ability to draw on a backlog of knowledge acquired over the years.

When it came time to organize the book, I decided to focus only on the six occupied European nations whose governments escaped to London in the spring and summer of 1940, along with General Charles de Gaulle and his Free French forces. In the spring of 1941, two additional European countries—Greece and Yugoslavia—were invaded and occupied by Germany. The Greek government fled to Cairo and set up its wartime base there. The Yugoslav government, headed by King Peter II, arrived in London in June 1941. Although the British gave substantial aid to Yugoslav partisans resisting the Germans, the king and his government had little influence with the British or, for that matter, within their own country. For that reason, among others (including the sheer unwieldiness of adding another country to an already complex narrative), I decided to leave Yugoslavia out of the story.

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FINALLY, I’D LIKE TO express my deep appreciation to the dozens of librarians and archivists who have so generously helped me in my research over the years. Some work for institutions that I consider to be special treasures, including the UK’s National Archives at Kew, the Churchill Archives at Cambridge University, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. Another jewel is Georgetown University’s Lauinger Library, which has been my home away from home for the last two decades. With its extraordinary collection of books and other material on every aspect of international affairs you can think of, it has made my research incomparably easier.

A word of thanks as well to the many historians whose work I learned from and drew on in writing Last Hope Island. I’d like to single out Christopher Andrew, Asa Briggs, Max Hastings, François Kersaudy, David Stafford, and Robert and Isabelle Tombs.

Thanks to everyone at Random House, especially my brilliant editor, Susanna Porter, and her immensely talented associate, Priyanka Krishnan. A shout-out, too, to Henry Rosenbloom, Philip Gwyn Jones, Molly Slight, and the other folks at Scribe, who are publishing Last Hope Island in the UK and Australia. And to my longtime friend Gail Ross, for all that she’s done for me and the other authors who are fortunate enough to have her as their agent.

And of course, to my husband, Stan Cloud, and my daughter, Carly. Words cannot express how much I owe to both of you. You are my everything.