Sarah asked Jacqueline Winspear:

I really enjoyed the Maisie Dobbs series at first, but I honestly stopped reading it because she never seems to find happiness and it was too depressing. Why does Maisie seem to be stuck on a perpetual crash course?

Jacqueline Winspear Maisie finds happiness - in fact, she has a fair number of laughs and finds great joy in those she loves. But I also set her character against the times - and they were times when people knew great losses, especially the women who lost so much during two wars, and during a time when disease and workplace accidents could easily take a life, and when childbirth was far more risky than today (though my obstetrician friend says that it's still as risky as in Victorian times, we are just fooled by the technology nowadays!). And the truth is that when you are writing a mystery, there is inevitably death - and with death comes grief and the passage of recovery. The traits of endurance and resilience demonstrated by Maisie's generation of women inspires me - and at the end of each book she is moving on having accomplished a great deal, and having the love and regard of those who know her - characters she loves in return.

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