Unfortunately, there have always been people who will take advantage of others misfortune and sadly, unwanted babies fed an industry; the practice of baby farming. As I’ve already mentioned, baby farming was the practice of taking money for looking after a baby but not doing that, and children were often underfed and mistreated. There were also a lot of illegal adoptions that took place; adverts in British newspapers with babies and children for sale, although luckily, there were also people that wanted to help legalize the industry. It’s not surprising there more unwed mothers and more illegitimate babies during wartime given there was so much uncertainty about the future and the temptation to live each day as if it were your last. I’m sure society was shifting its attitude about motherhood during this time because of war, and because so many men weren’t returning, and there was probably a renewed feeling of the sacredness of life. People may have turned a blind eye to it before and banished unmarried mothers to convents and babies to foundling hospitals, but there was social change thanks to women like Olive Melville Brown who pursued the cause in her newspaper stories, and Clara Andrew, who worked for the National Adoption Society.

In what ways does the current iteration of the novel differ from the novel you initially intended to write? In what ways has it stayed the same?

Initially I didn’t know how I would combine the stolen baby storyline with the publishing one, but as soon as I found out about the practice of baby farming and had the idea that Alice would combine her search for her missing child with creating these much-needed books, it gave me the engine of the story. The introduction of the real settings of London Zoo and Book Row, and the competition between the British and American publishing industries created a fascinating canvas for the story too. Given how essential books were during wartime, and how significant the struggles of the industry were then, this became an important storyline. By including the competition and collaboration between the US and British, I was able to include some of the fascinating detail about the publishing industry in Britain and the US during wartime.

The developing relationship between Alice and Theo stayed the same as I’d intended, but the character of Ursula had a much larger role in an earlier draft, and while it was right to reduce it because this really is Alice and Theo’s story, I am tempted to go back to Ursula one day . . .

Though this is your American debut, you have also authored two previous works of historical fiction in Australia. How did the writing experience of your current novel compare to that of your past novels?