Goodreads asked Jennifer Hallock:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Jennifer Hallock I lived in the Philippines for four years and realized that this was such a rich setting for historical romance. Unfortunately, most Americans do not know of our history in this country. The Spanish-American War of 1898 ended with us buying the Philippines from Spain for $20 million, launching a debate in the United States about whether or not we were an imperial nation. This was as divisive a debate within the US from 1898-1902 as Vietnam and Iraq would be seventy and one hundred years later.

The Americans had to fight a costly war to pacify the islands. First, we had to expand our Army (which at the time was no larger than the current size of the New York City Police Department). We lost over 4000 soldiers and more were wounded, while the Philippines suffered 20,000 military deaths and 200,000 civilian deaths due to starvation and disease. In the end, the Americans managed to convince the Filipinos to put down their weapons, partly by bringing popular policies such as universal education and improved sanitation and health care. This is where I thought the story got interesting, so I made my heroine an American schoolteacher, one of 1000 who spread out across the islands to start secular, coeducational, public, English-language elementary schools.

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