This memoir by Winspear ("Maisie Dobbs" series) covers decades of her early life and touches minimally on her writing career and adult life. Winspear explains her own life through the experiences of her grandparents and parents, who lived through the First and Second World Wars, respectively. Both her father and grandfather served in the British military during the wars, and her mother frequently shared stories of her time in London during the Blitz. Growing up in rural England without many creature comforts (no running water or electricity, let alone a radio or television), Winspear and her family entertained themselves through stories. These family stories, along with Winspear's stories of her own early life, permeate this memoir with incredible detail. Hearing the stories narrated by the author's gives an even deeper sense of the connection between Winspear and the memorable people in her life. History buffs with an interest in this time period will enjoy the insight into the effects of the wars on families like Winspear's, including some details about the era that do not appear in history books. Fans of the author will easily see how her early life influenced her work. VERDICT Will appeal to fans of memoir, history, or the author herself.--Courtney Pentland, Omaha, NE

Winspear, the Agatha Award--winning author of the Maisie Dobbs mystery series, uses her talent as a consummate teller of tales to share family stories, some of which she later discovered were greatly exaggerated or untrue, in this lovely memoir. Though she was born in 1955, she provides a visceral portrait of London during WWII and the hardships and cultural changes that shaped England in the decades that followed. She brings to life the sights and fragrances of the Kentish hop fields where her parents did seasonal work, and she unfolds the slow route she took to becoming a writer, starting in her 40s when she wrote her first novel inspired by family war stories. Along the way, she illustrates the kindness of Romany travelers, and devotes a chapter entitled "A Gypsy Life" that recounts how her parents, before they had children, lived in a caravan alongside some Romany families and became friendly with them. At one point, Winspear describes how betrayed she felt when she discovered that her mother lied to her by making her uncle, her mother's beloved brother, the hero of many of the mother's wartime stories when in fact some other, more distant relative was the hero. Readers of the Maisie Dobbs series will take particular pleasure in spotting the origins of places, characters, and even plotlines. The author's fans and lovers of recent English history will be delighted with this elegantly executed memoir. Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Literary. (Nov.)

The bestselling author recalls her childhood and her family's wartime experiences. Readers of Winspear's popular Maisie Dobbs mystery series appreciate the London investigator's canny resourcefulness and underlying humanity as she solves her many cases. Yet Dobbs had to overcome plenty of hardships in her ascent from her working-class roots. Part of the appeal of Winspear's Dobbs series are the descriptions of London and the English countryside, featuring vividly drawn particulars that feel like they were written with firsthand knowledge of that era. In her first book of nonfiction, the author sheds light on the inspiration for Dobbs and her stories as she reflects on her upbringing during the 1950s and '60s. She focuses much attention on her parents' lives and their struggles supporting a family, as they chose to live far removed from their London pasts. "My parents left the bombsites and memories of wartime London for an openness they found in the country and on the land," writes Winspear. As she recounts, each of her parents often had to work multiple jobs, which inspired the author's own initiative, a trait she would apply to the Dobbs character. Her parents recalled grueling wartime experiences as well as stories of the severe battlefield injuries that left her grandfather shell-shocked. "My mother's history," she writes, "became my history--probably because I was young when she began telling me….Looking back, her stories--of war, of abuse at the hands of the people to whom she and her sisters had been billeted when evacuated from London, of seeing the dead following a bombing--were probably too graphic for a child. But I liked listening to them." Winspear also draws distinctive portraits of postwar England, altogether different from the U.S., where she has since settled, and her unsettling struggles within the rigid British class system. An engaging childhood memoir and a deeply affectionate tribute to the author's parents. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.