Maisie Thomas Books in Order

If you want to start at the beginning: The Railway Girls → Secrets of the Railway Girls → The Railway Girls in Love
If you want more home-front community drama: A New Home at the Wartime Hotel → Hopeful Hearts at the Wartime Hotel → Dreams Come True at the Wartime Hotel
If you want a cozy festive entry point: Christmas with the Railway Girls → A Christmas Miracle for the Railway Girls
If you want her newest fresh start: Changing Times at Calico House

Maisie Thomas is the pen name Manchester-born author Susanna Bavin uses for her Railway Girls novels and other historical sagas. She was born and brought up in Manchester, and that city, its streets, stations and working lives, sits at the heart of much of what she writes.

Manchester is everywhere in her work.

She has said she has been making up stories since childhood and always wanted to be a published author. That long interest in storytelling shows in the way her books focus on ordinary people under pressure, especially women trying to build a life in difficult times. She has also said she loves writing strong female characters in periods when women needed determination and vision to make their mark.

The spark behind the Maisie Thomas books is personal too. The Railway Girls series was inspired by her great-aunt Jessie, who worked as a railway clerk during the First World War. That family link helps explain why the railway novels feel so rooted in the daily business of work, duty and getting on with things, not just big historical events.

Her first Maisie Thomas novel, The Railway Girls, was published in 2020. It introduced readers to wartime Manchester through the lives of women taking on railway jobs, and the series soon grew with books such as Secrets of the Railway Girls, The Railway Girls in Love, Hope for the Railway Girls and Courage of the Railway Girls. Readers who enjoy these novels tend to come for the friendship, the home-front detail and the sense that even in hard times, people can still look after one another.

She knows how to make work feel important.

She once said that much of the early Railway Girls writing was done in her local library, and that working from home during the spring 2020 lockdown felt strangely difficult by comparison. It is a small detail, but it says a lot about her writing life. Routine matters to her, and so does the feel of ordinary places.

That helps explain the range of her later books too. In the Wartime Hotel novels, beginning with A New Home at the Wartime Hotel, an inherited Manchester hotel becomes a place of refuge, work and second chances. Later books such as Hopeful Hearts at the Wartime Hotel and Dreams Come True at the Wartime Hotel keep that focus on community, resilience and women finding room to steer their own lives. She has also moved into a new period with Changing Times at Calico House, a 1920s Manchester story that keeps her interest in family pressure, class, romance and fresh starts.

Away from the page, she lives in Llandudno on the North Wales coast with her husband and their rescue cats. She enjoys reading, walking and gardening, and she has said she loves living by the sea. Her husband Kevin is a railway enthusiast, and together they enjoy trips on heritage steam railways.