Author tidies Molly Gray's backstory in Maid series
For the better part of 20 years, Nita Prose was part of the publishing industry, working her way up to vice-president and editorial director of Simon & Schuster Canada.
Then Molly Gray entered her life.
Prose introduced Molly, maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, to the world in her 2022 mystery novel The Maid, which became a runaway international bestseller. Molly returned in 2023's The Mystery Guest and then in Prose's holiday-themed novella The Mistletoe Mystery in December 2024.
DAHLIA KATZ PHOTO
Nita Prose's The Maid's Secret is the author's last Molly Gray novel for now.
Now Molly's back to unpack another puzzle in The Maid's Secret, published in early April by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada.
Prose launches the novel today at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park, where she'll be joined in conversation by Rachel Lagacé of CTV Morning Live.
In The Maid's Secret, Molly takes a box of her late Gran's trinkets to a filming of Hidden Treasures, an Antiques Roadshow-like TV show filming at the Regency Grand.
Among the items is a decorative golden egg revealed to be a Fabergé prototype worth millions. When Molly decides to auction it off, the precious item goes missing — and handwritten notes threatening Molly's life begin to appear as she tries to crack the case of who poached her egg.
'When the Russian empire fell after the revolution in 1918, most of the Fabergé eggs that were given as Easter gifts (by the czars) made their way to collections all over the world to museums and private collections, but several of them remain missing to this day — and that has always fascinated me,' says Prose from Toronto.
For her latest Maid novel, Prose took on a new challenge — incorporating the voice of Molly's grandmother, Gran, into the narrative and providing a dual storyline that converges near the book's end.
The Maid's Secret alternates between Molly's exploits and diary entries from Gran that detail her younger years, the egg's origins and some of Molly's backstory.
Finding Gran's voice proved more of a challenge for Prose than writing Molly's narrative.
'I think authors always get one gift from the gods, and Molly's voice was my gift — she just descended from the heavens fully formed. I understood her. I didn't have to work hard to find that voice,' Prose says.
'With Gran's voice, it took a bit for me to trust myself at the beginning. The 'Write what you know' adage was really in my mind, and can a 50-something-year-old really write a voice that's much older? As it turns out, I feel like I did her justice.'
Fans of the Maid books might be verklempt that Prose says The Maid's Secret is the last Molly Gray book — at least for the foreseeable future.
'I'll never say never, but I kind of do see this as the end. Maybe in 10 years, I'll have an idea for another Molly adventure, but at the moment, I really wanted to draw the series to a close and to give people that sense of finality,' she says.
The Maid's Secret
'I don't feel like these characters, and particularly Molly, are mine anymore. I've been so lucky to have readers embrace Molly wholly and completely — she belongs to them now, and they're taking such good care of her.'
The good news: a Maid movie is likely in the cards.
'My hope is that we'll see it onscreen in the coming years,' Prose says.
Prose is already at work on a new novel — a mystery less cosy than the Molly Gray books, but one she hopes fans will enjoy just as much as her Maid books.
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'It's a novel about landscape and wilderness and how the land and a place can both heal and harm. And it's a novel about the unbreakable bond between sisters,' she says of the book, which is set in Ontario cottage country and features an older protagonist.
In the meantime, Prose is excited to get in front of fans and talk about all things Molly Gray.
'Writing is such a lonely, self-consuming activity. It challenges you in so many ways. I love that it's a lonely pursuit,' she says.
'But I also love the inverse — when it comes time to share the book, I'm really eager for feedback, for connection. Stories are, after all, meant to be shared, and for me, it's very meaningful to hear readers' responses.'
ben.sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca
Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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