Although my second novel, Revenge of the Rose, has a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward history, I put a lot of historical research into writing it. I also traveled the route that many of the characters travel over the course of the book: from Dole to Haute-Koenigsbourg and farther up the Rhine Valley to Mainz. (I could never have managed this trip without the help of my awesome  German cousin, Stephie Goethals.)