What I'm reading

Set in the time between World Wide Wars, in the late 20's, this is also the opening novel to a series featuring a brilliant young woman who rose above her conditions and earned her place in the sun so to speak. Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs is an interesting mesh of interesting qualities and flaws. She's brave, courageous, intelligent and independent. Maybe a little too much but the women of that time, that went up to the front as nurses, as ambulance drivers, that worked in the arms factories while hundred of thousands of young men died were brave, courageous, intelligent and independent. So I didn't mind if Maisie reads a little too much like a superwoman and that her family and friends accept her after she jumps ahead of her "conditions" of poor servant girl. Times were changing then. I love reading about that period of our recent history. The late 1910's 20's and early 30's. Times were changing and progress was coloring and radically changing the way people were living. Cars, telephones, electricity, etc. The opening novel, Maisie Dobbs is structured like a sandwich: part one we have Maisie setting up shop and handling her first cases alone after her mentor's retirement. One case opens up a door in Maisie's past she's been avoided for a long time. The middle part is a long flash back, giving us Maisie's story from a servant girl, to Cambridge student to Red Cross Nurse on the front line. The last part returns us to the present and what was behind the door. It's well written, interesting, the plot is thin since the writer focused much more on the characters, their background. The plot was the little yarn thread one holds on to while getting to know the characters. The historical setting is wonderful, the author did her research well. I'm definitely gonna come back and read the next novel in this series.