Quotes from Jacqueline Winspear

places leave their mark in the same way that a human being can touch us. We have to make our peace with place, with the locations where we have spent time. We consider how we've been affected by being present in a certain spot - and how the place itself is changed by what has come to pass. You only have to visit a battlefield long after a war has ended, to know that places are never quite the same following a tragedy.

And I know only too well how time can cast a sort of skin over an event—a membrane that gets thicker until a point where broaching the subject is all but impossible, even when you think you can face the grief and terror once more.

Tragedy is so personal, but it doesn't mean it hasn't happened before, to someone, somewhere—it's what helps us to understand and bring solace to others, knowing something of what they feel.

Hatred, revenge—they're just as bad as trying to protect yourself from more hurt—they can make you brittle inside. And if you're brittle, you break. One way or another, you break.

you should know that all maps are drawn in hindsight. And hindsight, if interpreted with care, is what brings us wisdom.

She might not be completely at peace with the past, but rubbed along with it because it was part of who she had become.

intimacy that can be had, even in a crowded room, when two people want only

Grief should be aired, not buried.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. —KAHLIL GIBRAN

The irony in any investigation was that lies were often protectors of the truth—unless they became too powerful, in which case lies were like worker bees who turn on their queen.

Memories appear in flashes of light, in short scenes, in reflections that can make us laugh or bring us to tears.

Those of us who have reached our more mature years know the value of a nap, Maisie, and we can indulge ourselves without the comfort of pillow or bed.

Seek the opportunity to swim beyond your own little pond.

Allow grief room to air itself," Maurice had taught her. "Be judicious in using the body to comfort another, for you may extinguish the freedom that the person feels to be able to share a sadness.

There is no path set for this kind of shock, and for the grief that attends such terrible news.

Truth grows even more powerful when it is suppressed, and that often it takes only one small crack to bring down the wall, to release it.

One always has riches when one has a book to read.

Maisie bit her lip. She had learned that sometimes it was best to let words die of their own accord, rather than fight them.

But for Maisie the case notes would not be filed away until those whole lives were touched by her investigation had reached a certain peace with her findings, with themselves, and with one another - as far as that might be possible.

I believe it's called 'irrational reasoning.' It's what happens to people when they're scared

Never let fears get in the way of happiness, because fear can lead to such irrational reasoning, and we can make dreadful mistakes, saying things we can't take back.

Perhaps we shouldn't try to answer the questions now - let's just note them down. Maurice always said the power in a question is not in the answer, it's in the way the imagination gets busy when the question is at work.

Never fear going in circles, Maisie. The next time around, you'll see something you missed before—that's if your mind is open. And you will be different, and it will be better. Experience, Maisie. Knowledge of yourself. And when you have knowledge, you have wisdom. If your mind is open, and your heart is willing.

Memories streamed over her, and she sat up, images converging in her mind's eye, the sneaker wave of grief catching her in its riptide pull once again, leaving her washed ashore, bereft, with two deep desires: to sleep forever, or to live life for them both. "Oh