M. Jacqueline Murray Award-Winning Author of the Maddie and Nate Series
M. Jacqueline Murray is a multi-award-winning author whose innovative Maddie & Nate series asks a provocative question: What if the same two people met at different moments in time?
Through three standalone yet interconnected novels, Murray explores one destined connection across parallel timelines: a tender late-life romance at 78 in Out of Time (2022), a forbidden midlife attraction in 1970s Toronto in Next Time (2024), and an early encounter in the upcoming Our Time. Each iteration reveals how timing reshapes not just relationships, but the very essence of who we become.
A true Renaissance spirit, Murray brings a rare combination to romance fiction. With advanced degrees in Earth Science and an MBA, she spent her career translating complex technical concepts into compelling narratives as a hydrogeologist, geochemist, and later in medical device innovation and strategic marketing. Her scientific rigor paired with storytelling prowess infuses her fiction with both intellectual depth and emotional resonance.
What was the catalyst for the “Maddie and Nate Series?”
Honestly, it wasn’t on my radar at all. During a road trip, my husband challenged me to write a novel. I laughed it off, insisting I wasn’t qualified. I hadn’t studied literature since high school. My professional life has revolved around the creation of accurate content. With degrees in Earth Science from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from Queen’s University, whether I was explaining geochemistry as a hydrogeologist, bringing medical devices to market, or developing strategic narratives for medical and biotech companies, I was translating complex technical concepts into compelling stories, but they were based in fact and data – definitely not fiction.
But my husband was persistent. “Just imagine if you were to write a novel, what would it be about?” The first idea that came to me was to build a story around our story. Our paths had crossed multiple times before we met — in Florida, in Malaysia, before we found each other in Arizona when the timing was right. I thought, what if I explored that idea through fiction? What if there were other timelines where we met at different moments? That question, “what if,” became the backbone of the series. I got excited about the idea and we talked about it for most of our almost six hour drive that day.
I dove in with zero formal training in creative writing, but my scientist instincts kicked in. I made spreadsheets to track multiple timelines, dates, and historical accuracy. My research habits just shifted from scientific journals to newspaper archives and historical records of women in STEM. It turned out to be a natural evolution. I applied the analytical rigor I learned as a scientist to exploring human emotions and relationships. Once I’d developed the timelines and world, I placed my characters in those realistic settings and followed them, writing down their actions and choices as they unfolded.
My writing process is to build in my mind and in my notes a very complete picture of the world and the particular scene I’m working on, and then I place my characters in it and see how they react. Sometimes they do things I don’t expect. I find myself laughing or tearing up as I write because in a way I’m living their lives along with them.
2025 was an incredible year for you winning awards. How does it feel to be recognized? Why is Maddie and Nate breaking romance conventions and winning the hearts of so many people?
It feels like validation in a way I’ve never needed before. Throughout my career, I’ve always had credentials to fall back on – degrees, professional experience, proven expertise. But with writing? I had none of that. This was the first time I’d entered book awards, and to receive recognition across multiple categories and organizations gave me the confidence I needed. It quieted the doubts that inevitably creep in when you’re doing something completely outside your established expertise. When I started writing, I thought, “I’m a scientist, what am I doing?” These awards proved to me that I had the stuff, that this wasn’t just some misguided experiment. They gave me the motivation to keep going.
The series breaks conventions because I didn’t know the “rules” when I started. Why couldn’t my protagonist be 78? Why couldn’t I tackle themes considered taboo in romance like infidelity, regret, and the messy reality of long-term relationships? Publishers say there’s no market for older protagonists, but I think that underestimates readers. Some of the most interesting, complex people I know are in their seventies and eighties. They have depth, wisdom, and, yes, passion. Why shouldn’t they get great love stories?
I get emails from readers in their thirties saying, “I hope I’m like Maddie when I grow up” and readers in their eighties saying, “Thank you for showing that we still matter.” That range tells me I’m doing something right. These awards help me believe that writing my way, even when it’s “wrong” by conventional standards and expert opinions, actually works. There’s a hungry audience out there for intelligent, emotionally sophisticated narratives that respect their intelligence while celebrating the universal power of human connection.
Let’s delve into your series. There are two big ideas: The quantum multiverse branches endlessly through superposition, while our consciousness follows just one fixed path. And a fervent belief that every person is connected to their one true soulmate. Take us through your series.
Those two ideas are exactly what drive the series. As a scientist, quantum entanglement has always fascinated me, where two particles remain connected across any distance. When you measure one, you instantly know the state of the other. That’s my metaphor for Maddie and Nate: they’re fundamentally linked across timelines, but it’s their choices that create different outcomes in each reality.
The series follows brilliant engineer Maddie Cole and principled lawyer Nate Jacobs through three parallel timelines where they meet at radically different life stages. Out of Time shows them meeting at 78 and 80 in Bar Harbor, Maine. Maddie’s a retired engineer who chose career over convention. Nate’s a widower running a bed-and-breakfast. Maddie and her daughter Anne are staying at Nate’s B&B. When Anne is called away, Maddie stays. As Nate and Maddie get to know each other, they discover they’ve been crossing paths for decades without truly meeting. The novel chronicles this discovery as their connection deepens, exploring a love story rich with the tenderness, wisdom, and vulnerability that only comes at that stage of life.
Next Time takes place in 1976 Toronto. They meet in a hotel bar, both married with families. Maddie’s fighting to establish herself as a female engineer in a male-dominated field. Their instant connection creates a years-long affair that explores duty versus desire. It’s the most morally complex book because there are no easy answers about what we owe to existing commitments versus undeniable connection.
Our Time, coming in 2026, shows them meeting in their late twenties in 1960s Japan when career ambitions are fierce. It explores how destiny and professional success collide when you meet your person at the moment you’re laser-focused on building your future.
Each book is standalone, but together they create a meditation on choice and destiny. Readers tell me seeing Maddie and Nate at different ages makes them reflect on their own life choices, their own “what ifs.” That’s exactly what I hoped for.
How do the characters face complex moral choices and the mysteries of human connection?
I write without judgment. These are good people facing impossible situations. In Next Time, both Maddie and Nate love their spouses and children, but they also have an undeniable connection to each other. The book asks hard questions: What do you owe to duty versus desire? Can you love more than one person? How do your choices affect everyone around you?
I trust readers to grapple with those questions themselves. The book club discussions about Next Time are always the most intense because there’s no easy answer. Maddie describes their relationship as an addiction. She knows rationally she should walk away, but emotionally she can’t. Nate is loyal to his commitments yet drawn to Maddie in ways he can’t deny.
Across all timelines, the constants are authenticity and vulnerability. In Out of Time, the moral complexity comes from accumulated wisdom. At 78, Maddie and Nate understand their bodies, their histories, their limitations. There’s beautiful honesty in physical connection at that age. They’re not performing for anyone.
The quantum framework allows me to explore how choices collapse potential into reality. In each timeline, we see the same people, but timing reshapes not just their relationships but who they become as individuals. It proves that while certain connections might be destined, our choices determine everything about how those connections manifest.
Are you working on a new book?
Yes, I’m currently working on Our Time, the third and final book in the trilogy. It’s set in 1966 in Japan and shows Maddie and Nate meeting when they’re young, when career ambitions are fierce and their whole lives stretch ahead. I’m being careful not to reveal too much since I’m still writing it, but I can say it explores how professional success competes with the undeniable gravity of connection.
Readers who’ve followed the series will see how these two people, who had such powerful chemistry at seventy-eight and in their forties, would have navigated their connection when they were just starting out. It’s about the choices we make when we’re building our identities and how those early decisions create ripples through everything that follows.
My dream is that someday this series becomes a television series, something that blends the intimate temporal intricacies of Sliding Doors, the heart-stirring romance of The Notebook, and the multi-generational emotional depth of This Is Us. The worlds I create are fully realized. Some say too detailed, but that immersive quality is exactly what makes readers feel like they’re living alongside these characters. It’s why I can see it translating so naturally to television. A series format would also provide the opportunity to explore more deeply the ripple effects of Maddie and Nate’s choices on the other characters in ways I can’t fully develop in the books.
Why was a career in STEM the gift that keeps giving? Any advice for young women?
My STEM background brings credibility and depth to everything I write. The research habits, attention to detail, and systematic thinking I developed as a hydrogeologist and geochemist enrich my fiction. I can’t write a scene without knowing every detail. For Next Time, set in 1976 Toronto, I researched newspaper archives to find out what dresses were advertised for holiday galas, what cars people drove, what music was playing, and the score of the Leafs game on TV on a particular date. That invisible architecture makes the world feel real.
More importantly, as a woman in a male-dominated field, I experienced firsthand what it’s like to fight for respect and recognition. I even did a stint working internationally in Malaysia in the 1980s, in a country that marginalized women in the workplace. That lived experience brings authenticity to Maddie’s character as an engineer in the 1960s and seventies. I understand what it takes to persist when you’re overlooked or underestimated simply because you’re female.
My advice for young women? Be fearless. I transitioned from geology to medical innovation to strategic marketing to writing novels. Each step felt risky, but they all connected. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s no market for what you want to create. Some of my biggest successes came from breaking rules I didn’t even know existed. Your unique perspective, your different background, that’s your strength, not a limitation. Use it – unapologetically.
