FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Pardonable Lies, 2005

Ashland, Or.  August 2, 2006

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Jacqueline Winspear: The World of Maisie Dobbs

 

The world of Maisie Dobbs is London, in the ten years after World War I, when England and all of Europe is still reeling from the aftermath of the war to end all wars. Meet Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs series, on Thursday August 10th, 7pm at the Ashland Public Library. 

 

Maisie Dobbs (2003)Winspear's presentation will be preceded by Camille Korsmo's lecture, Mystery and the British Tea Tradition, and a formal and very traditional British tea with sweets and savories.  Participants are urged to bring their own bone chine tea cup for all to admire and to contribute a free will donation to benefit the Ashland and Phoenix Public Libraries and the American Association of University Women Ashland Branch Scholarship Fund.

 

Bloomsbury Books will have Winspear's books on sale at the event.

 Jacqueline Winspear, Author

The brass name plate on the stoop of Maisie's building reads, "Psychologist and Investigator" and that is exactly who she is.  As Time Magazine puts it, "She's a cerebral, vulnerable inquisitor who takes up sleuthing in the late 1930s to heal the trauma she experienced as a nurse in the Great War."  Even ten years later, nightmares interrupt Maisie's day and her sleep, the red blood of the men who died in Flanders wicking up her clothing.

 

Read the first Maisie Dobbs and you'll be captured -- by the truth, by the mystery, by the spirit of the characters and the times. Maisie has a gift for reading the souls of those tortured by war and the misfortunes of life. Perhaps she's a bit fey, reading those souls so well, but Maisie is also perceptive, patient, kind, quiet and brilliant -- allowing those who need help to offer their inner most thoughts.

 

In Birds of a Feather (2004), Maisie seeks out the truth behind the disappearance of a wealthy heiress, the daughter of a self-made man, who has been lavished with privilege and kept in a gilded cage.  When Maisie investigates, she finds a link between a chilling murder and the terrible legacy of the Great War.

 

Pardonable Lies (2005) is the third of the Maisie Dobbs books and the healing after the Great War continues. When a deathbed plea from Sir Cecil Lawton's wife leads Maisie to investigate the death of their aviator son, Maisie must return to the site of her own most painful memories.

 

Winspear's latest book is Messenger of Truth, published in hardcover by Henry Holt in late August 2006.

 

Maisie Dobbs was published in 2003 and took the literary and mystery worlds by surprise, quickly becoming a national bestseller and winning the Agatha and the Macavity, getting coveted starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and named as a New York times Notable Book in 2003. Since then Winspear's works have collected reviews from the best: Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times Book Review calls Maisie whipsmart, saying "Maisie is a sleuth to treasure."  Time Magazine writes "she's a cerebral, vulnerable inquisitor ... on a quest for truth, during which secrets and lies lead instead to self-discovery." Publishers Weekly says, she "writes seamlessly, enriching the whole with vivid details of English life on a variety of social levels."

For more information, www.jaquelinewinspear.com.

 

The Ashland Mystery Readers Group also produces the cable access television show Ashland Mystery, rvtv noir, airing Wednesdays at 7:30 pm PST on cable 15 in Southern Oregon.

 

For more information contact Maureen Flanagan at 541-552-0743 or visit the group’s website www.booksandoldlace.com/

 


Jacqueline Winspear reads from Messenger of Truth (Macmillan, 2006) on Ashland Mystery rvtv noir

 

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