Three days after handing in the copy edited manuscript, I am still recovering. I’m back at work on Velva Jean in Hollywood (that’s not the title, by the way), but I’m still feeling a little too depleted to write anything vaguely coherent.

So for now, I wanted to share some of my research for Becoming Clementine. As most of you know, it’s the third book in the Velva Jean series, in which she learns to spy. (Have I mentioned how challenging but fun it was to research this book?)

Women spies run in my family, although none of them, to my knowledge, spied in World War II. They spied in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. One of these women, Jane Black Thomas, was a Revolutionary War hero and South Carolina’s first feminist. She not only spied for the Patriots; she single-handedly fought off—with a sword—a battalion of Tories to protect a crucial supply of ammunition and the family home. Is it any wonder I’ve always been intrigued by spies?

I came across this video last spring. It’s long, but it’s fascinating! (The first female spy featured could almost be Velva Jean…)

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/women-spies-in-world-war-ii/17wfb0ikx