Maisey

Maisey asked Jacqueline Winspear:

I love your books but I sometimes find it frustrating that it seems you really don't want Maisie Dobbs to be happy. How many bad things can happen to one character?! I realize you want to concentrate on aspects of the mystery at hand but often, crucial events in her life seems to be handled in the space of a few scant pages or in flashback, especially in "A Dangerous Place".

Jacqueline Winspear A DANGEROUS PLACE was an exception, and it is explained in JOURNEY TO MUNICH. Not everything is revealed in a single novel - I have always seen the series as a saga driven by history and character development, with each book underpinned by mystery, that archetypal journey through chaos to resolution (or not, as the case may be). Maisie has known much happiness - although her journey reflects the lives of so many women of that era. That is why the strengths of endurance and resilience are so often seen in her generation of women - war, industrial accidents, disease and poor healthcare made life incredibly difficult in the first half of the 20th century - hence the timeliness of the saying, "Keep Calm and Carry On" used in WW2.

More Answered Questions

wonderwomand

wonderwomand asked Jacqueline Winspear:

Maisie Dobbs is one of my favorite characters. In the preview for In This Grave Hour, we meet a character again from one of your earlier Maisie books - I think it was the Secret Agent book. Question: Did you already have an idea about writing In This Grave Hour when you wrote the Maisie book about Maisie taking a teaching position at University to find out something for the British government?

wonderwomand

wonderwomand asked Jacqueline Winspear:

We will meet a character from another Maisie book in your new book In This Grave Hour. Did you have plans to write In This Grave Hour when you wrote the Maisie book about Maisie teaching about peace at University ? I am not sure how to phrase my question.

Terry

Terry asked Jacqueline Winspear:

Thank you for sharing your talent with us all and giving us these books and a world to inhabit together. You convey so much of the psychology involved for your characters which, if we choose, can instill a better understanding of war from a personal view. Our world presently is engulfed in conflicts that overwhelm me. With your view do you have an understanding of how history can still be repeating itself?

All answers from Jacqueline Winspear…

Jacqueline Winspear

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