April Grun­span became enam­ored with writ­ing while study­ing under author Car­ole Klein at God­dard Col­lege dur­ing the 1970s. She worked as a jour­nal­ist and an edi­tor until she took a long break to raise a fam­i­ly. She has now returned to her love of craft­ing fic­tion. Her inspi­ra­tion for The Coat is a Nazi officer’s coat her son did, indeed, inher­it from his Holo­caust-sur­vivor grand­fa­ther. This is her first pub­lished novel.