Best-selling author Susan Elia MacNeal credits reading and readers, along with libraries and librarians, with forming her as a human being. “Reading helps us learn about the world, as well as become more empathetic and compassionate,” she says. “You experience things in books, learn things, meet new people, and encounter new ways of living and thinking. And when you return to the ‘real’ world, you’re changed for the better. Reading books for pleasure is one of the most worthwhile things we can do with our short time here on this earth.”
To read books for pleasure, many people turn to MacNeal’s own “Maggie Hope” mystery series, in which plucky math savant and codebreaker Maggie Hope helps the Allies triumph over the Nazis during World War II. With the publication of the final novel in this series coming up fast on May 21, USA Wire asked MacNeal to reflect on what these books have meant for her from the beginning.
The initial inspiration for this series, it turned out, arose in an unexpected way.
A Life-changing visit
“The story about how Maggie Hope came about is a bit bonkers,” MacNeal says. “I must thank the Jim Henson Company, the Muppets, and Bear in the Big Blue House.”
She’s not kidding. “In a nutshell, my husband, Noel MacNeal, starred as Bear in Bear in the Big Blue House on Disney Channel,” she explains. “He was sent to London to work with Disney Channel UK. I had just been laid off from my job as a magazine editor and went along.
“While he was off one day, doing Muppety, puppety things, I went to the Churchill War Cabinet Rooms — the actual underground bunker in Whitehall where Churchill and his colleagues would meet. It’s protected from bombs by a huge, thick slab of concrete. In the museum, you’re walking the same halls, the same rooms, just as it looked during the war. It’s a true time capsule, and I really did feel like I stepped through decades back to the war days. Going to the War Rooms was a catalyst for my writing as well as the character and series of Maggie Hope. How could I not write about it?”
In this way, a single visit to a historic site changed her life. Still, it was a long time before the first book in the 11-novel series, “Mr. Churchill’s Secretary,” was released in 2012.
“It wasn’t an overnight success,” MacNeal remembers. “I had years and years of rewrites, rejections, more rejections, yet more rejections… Having ‘Mr. Churchill’s Secretary’ published was truly a dream come true. I was truly ready to give up when it happened, so it was incredibly special.”
“Mr. Churchill’s Secretary” went on to win a Barry Award, a top accolade for crime fiction.
Saying goodbye to Maggie Hope
The last Maggie Hope novel, entitled “The Last Hope,” is scheduled for release on May 21. MacNeal describes finishing such an important series as “bittersweet.”
“My son went off to college last year, and it’s much the same feeling sending Maggie off,” she says. “I’ll miss her and her friends for sure. Maggie, David, John, Chuck, Sarah — they’re all incredibly real to me. I’ll miss David and his exclamations — ‘Merciful Minerva!’ ‘Jumping Janus!’ and also Mr. K, the cat and his ‘Meh!’ There’s a final scene in ‘The Last Hope’ where all the characters have dinner together for the last time, and it was the real, quite heartbreaking goodbye for me.”
Maggie Hope fans are sure to feel the same way. Successfully bringing the series to a close was never a given for MacNeal, however.
MacNeal kept writing through numerous challenges
During the 14 years between the first and last Maggie Hope novel, MacNeal navigated many changes in her personal life that threatened to distract her from this work.
“Looking back, I’m proud I stayed the course,” she says. “Since the first book was published, my son has made it all the way through school and into college. My mother-in-law came to live with us for two years and then died — I’m honored I was able to care for her. My mother also died. My father is in assisted living, there was a worldwide pandemic, I had a number of health issues that could have affected my productivity, and my books were passed from editor to editor. I’m proud I kept writing through it all.”
Her fans are grateful, too. The good news is that MacNeal is hard at work on not one but several new projects.
Exciting new projects on the horizon
“I just signed a contract with Minotaur Books for a new stand-alone mystery/thriller and new mystery series!” MacNeal reports. “I’m absolutely thrilled!”
These new stories will feature MacNeal trademarks her fans love — strong female protagonists investigating murders in exciting places complete with rich historical detail. “The stand-alone is set in London in 1966 and scheduled for publication in the winter of 2025,” MacNeal says. “The new series is set in New York City in 1958 and will (theoretically) come out in the winter of 2026.”
MacNeal’s use of the word “theoretically” hints at her understanding that some things will be outside her control, which brings us to the most important lesson she reports having learned as an author — to focus on what she can: “The writing,” she says. “I let go of trying to control anything else, such as reviews, publicity, marketing, sales, TV and movie deals, etc. Ultimately, it’s all about the characters and the writing and the books.”
Unforgettable stories that change readers for the better
Reading the Maggie Hope books has changed countless readers for the better. As fans soon begin savoring the last installment in this series, MacNeal will still be busy writing, preparing to introduce them to whole new characters and storylines they’ll never forget.
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