The little-known chapters of history are what compel Kristina McMorris to write.
For her New York Times bestseller “Sold on a Monday,” it was a Depression-era photo of two children for sale on a farmhouse porch.
In “The Edge of Lost,” it was a documentary about children who had grown up on Alcatraz Island.
McMorris’ latest novel, “The Ways We Hide,” out Sept. 6, was inspired by two nuggets of history: the 1913 Italian Hall Disaster, in which 73 men, women and children — mostly mine workers and their families — were crushed to death in a stampede in Michigan’s copper country on Christmas Eve.
“It was a story that I stumbled across online and was stunned that I’d never heard about it before,” McMorris said in a recent interview with the Greenville Journal.
She had also come across an article about how game boards like Monopoly were used in World War II to smuggle compasses, maps and other instruments to help Allied POWs escape.
“When I put the two of them together, suddenly I realized that this could be an entire book, that if my character had survived the Italian Hall tragedy, she would become obsessed with escape,” McMorris said.
In “The Ways We Hide,” Fenna Vos is a female illusionist who’s the mastermind behind a traveling escape act. Her unique skill set ends up attracting MI9, a highly secret branch of British intelligence in charge of escape and evasion support.
“They were what I call the go-go gadget team of World War II,” McMorris says.
Tasked with designing escape aids to thwart the Germans, MI9 seeks those with specialized skills for a war nearing its breaking point. Fenna reluctantly joins the unconventional team as an inventor but gets pulled much deeper into the war than she ever expects.
“The fact that MI9 actually worked with magicians and illusionists is also such an amazing story,” McMorris says. “That’s why I love writing historical fiction, so I can shine a spotlight on very often lesser known facts of history.”
“The Ways We Hide” is McMorris’ sixth novel. A seventh, “When We Had Wings,” which she co-wrote with authors Ariel Lawhon (“Code Name Hélène”) and Susan Meissner (“Secrets of a Charmed Life”), releases next month.
McMorris will be at Soby’s New South Cuisine Sept. 13 for a “Lunch & Lit” event hosted by M. Judson Booksellers. Tickets are $40. Visit mjudsonbooks.com/calendar for more information.
