Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in the county of Kent, England. Following higher education at the University of London's Institute of Education, Jacqueline worked in both general and academic publishing, in higher education and in marketing communications in the UK. She emigrated to the United States in 1990. She is the author of the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. The second book in the series, Birds of a Feather, won the Agatha Award for best novel of 2004. The seventh book in this series, The Mapping of Love and Death, will be released in 2010.