Breaking Out: Nita Prose

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We first connected with Nita Prose during her debut novel's publication and featured her in our September/October 2022's Breaking In column. Now that her next publication hits shelves today, we're reconnecting with her.

I wrote The Maid’s Secret in about eight months, but that speed is deceptive and only part of the entire story! It took me a long twenty years as an editor to learn the narrative skills that allow me to pen a first draft relatively quickly. After getting a draft down, there’s lots of editing that happens before the book becomes final. 

It’s been humbling to be on the “other side” of publishing—meaning as a writer rather than as an editor. Working in a publishing house, you’re surrounded by colleagues, and you’re all pushing towards the same end goals and conversing about your books every day. When you’re writing, it’s not like that. Though you have a team and all kinds of people rooting for you (your agent, your publishers, your editors, and more), they’re not in the office with you. And when it comes to the actual task of getting that story onto the scary, white page, it’s all up to you. It’s a lonely, challenging pursuit.

I’ve always been keenly aware of the leap of faith writers take when finding their fiction, but now I’ve experienced the entire emotional rollercoaster personally. I’ve also been lucky to come out the other side greeted by readers who love Molly and feel they know her. This is so gratifying, and it makes the lonely moments worthwhile. 

Gran’s voice was the biggest surprise. This is the first Molly the maid book that features any voice other than Molly’s. In The Maid’s Secret, Gran tells her own story for the first time. It was electrically satisfying to bring Gran to life and to discover all the small ways her experiences dovetail into Molly’s, informing who Molly becomes. We are all the product of those who came before us, and in the case of Gran, Molly comes to appreciate the many sacrifices she made to give Molly a good life. 

I love books that combine genres, that “Frankenstein” two styles together to create something new and different. In this novel, we have a high-stakes art heist in the present-tense mystery, but in the past tense, what unfurls is an epic, star-crossed love story—one that underpins and informs all the other books in the series. Finding that new genre—the epic love story, told across a great expanse of time all inside a racing, pacy mystery—that, I believe, is my greatest accomplishment in this book. 

Yes! I would have planned out the Molly the Maid series from the start. When I wrote The Maid, I had enough on my plate thinking of completing just one book. While writing, I never considered the possibility of its success, never mind what might come after it! As it turned out, I was greeted by many pleas and entreaties from my readers and from my publishers to keep the series going.

At first, I was daunted by that possibility. What other stories existed in Molly’s world? Was there really more to say? So grateful was I that people had come to love Molly, I was worried that nothing else I could write would measure up to the first book in the series. In the end, I found my way to other stories that I hope offer as much as The Maid, maybe even more. That being said, I would have spared myself a lot of creative angst if I’d figured out the narrative map from the outset! 

There’s the old adage that writers should “write what they know.” But I think writers often take that too literally. Often, we know so much more than we think we do, and only through the strange pursuit of fiction can we realize it on the page. I’ve always been fascinated with the irony that fiction is all “made up,” and yet when it’s at its best, there is often more truth to fiction than to any hard fact. This perplexing mystery keeps me engaged in the process of writing.

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I’m now figuring out my next book and the characters who will live in my noggin for the next few years. I’m excited to explore new characters and a narrative tapestry that’s entirely different from anything I’ve written before. In some ways, I’m throwing off the cozy blanket to embrace a more atmospheric style of mystery that combines propulsive thriller elements. Still, character is the root of everything in my writing, and in my next book, you’ll meet someone who’s forced to confront the legacy of her own secrets as she nears the end of her life. It’s a story that explores the ebb and flow of life’s seasons and that examines how the past can reverberate through time and across generations, delivering closure, but never as expected. 

Instagram: @nitaprose
Website: NitaProse.com