Well, I pretty much still feel like this:

But my goal was to rewrite the Introduction, which still hadn’t sufficiently answered the “so what?” question. My book centers on the activities of four American women caught in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation of World War II. For me, the “so what?” was pretty obvious, but I am not my readers. Now I think I have finally explained that this is a riveting story of wartime intrigue and resistance that reveals the far-reaching consequences of imperialism. So in the week ahead I will be revising Chapter One to explain how the United States became involved in the Philippines. Stay tuned.