Non-Fiction

The Maisie Dobbs Series

Reading through time with the Maisie Dobbs series—An Introduction

When I wrote Maisie Dobbs, the first novel in the series of which the psychologist/investigator is the protagonist, I had no idea it would become a series. When Maisie Dobbs went into production, my editor called me and asked “What about the next book in the series?” At first my mind went blank and I stalled for time, though it was not long before I had the next several books planned.

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I was fortunate in that I had time to consider what kind of series I wanted to create, and I decided that, not only would there be an arc to each story, but the overall series would have an arc—a beginning, middle and end. As the series moved from the years of post-WW1 Britain on through the major events of the 1920’s to 1940’s, I wanted to focus on the impact of extraordinary times on the lives of ordinary people. And I wanted to use the mystery to give form to the journey through chaos to resolution—or not, as the case may be.

When you begin reading the Maisie Dobbs series from the beginning, you will journey through the years from 1913, and onward through the Great Depression and into the Spanish Civil War. With the most recent books, Maisie Dobbs and her fellow characters are entering the years of the Second World War—and as a writer I have to ask the question, “How would that have felt for people who lost so much in the previous war which was still so present in the collective memory, and had left them with such pain and grief?”

Note: The Care and Management of Lies, a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, is a ‘standalone’ novel set in the Great War—it is not a mystery or part of the Maisie Dobbs series.

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Standalone Novel

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Header image: The evacuation of British children in WW2 (Wikimedia Commons)