Teresa Messineo talks THE FIRE BY NIGHT

It took Teresa Messineo seven years to research and pen her debut novel about World War Two nurses, THE FIRE BY NIGHT. The problem? Many of the nurses returning from the Pacific Theatre were forced to sign an oath of secrecy with the US Government hiding their wartime service for a 60-year period. Today, Teresa discusses tracking down first-hand accounts from the few 90-year-old WW2 nurses still remaining in order to collect accurate information for the novel. She also recalls her childhood growing up home-schooled on an organic farm in the '70s, deciding to go to a Catholic high school so she could play basketball, and fabricating her report card - with the help of her father - to get her into an Honors-level English class.