Going once, going twice… gone

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2025 (358 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Just over three years ago, Toronto’s Nita Prose published her first novel, The Maid; it has become an astonishing success, with sales in Canada and United States passing 2 million copies. It features the completely likable Molly Gray who works in a five-star downtown hotel called the Regency Grand. The Maid was followed by Molly’s further adventures in The Mystery Guest (2023) and The Mistletoe Mystery (2024).

In Prose’s latest, Molly has become head maid and special events manager at the Regency Grand. The love of her life, Juan Manuel Morales, is now head of pastry in the kitchen of the same hotel. Both Molly and Juan are content with their jobs and the simple way they live. As was true of Molly’s first three books, this latest is fun to read.

Prose adds a new touch to her latest, alternating chapters of the main story with those devoted to the diary of Molly’s grandmother, Flora “Gran” Gray, who died long before the events of The Maid’s Secret take place. Molly has the key to the locked diary but, as the novel begins, she has yet to open it.

Prose gradually gives the reader a look at the diary pages, presenting the highlights of Gran’s life from her teen-aged years on. The author builds suspense by moving from Molly’s narrative to Gran’s at critical times.

As Molly’s story begins, she and Juan go to work and find the hotel lobby filled with “Brown and Beagle groupies” who have come for an on-site filming of the latest episode of Hidden Treasures, which features a popular gay couple named Baxley Brown and Thomas Beagle. They are going to auction off a number of trinkets from Molly, items she thought were not worth a whole lot.

Brown and Beagle, often referred to as The Bees, think otherwise about one of the items — a golden egg they recognize as being from the House of Fabergé. It is a 24-carat piece inlaid with rubies, pearls, emeralds and diamonds; Brown reckons it might be worth as much as five million dollars. Word spreads quickly; Molly relays that “(f)or the first time ever, I find myself the very epicenter of attention at the hotel. I try not to think about what… the news of the Fabergé will mean to my life in the future, but no matter how hard I wipe the slate clean, my environs find a way to remind me.”

Molly assures her boss, Mr. Snow, that she has no intention of quitting her job, whether she becomes wealthy or not. Through the Hidden Treasures TV episode, she becomes a celebrity.

At the same time, Juan and Molly are planning a wedding, and they realize the sale of the egg will improve their lives.

The day comes when the egg is to be auctioned off. To the crowd in the Regency Grand tearoom, Baxley Brown acts as emcee and says they are about to “change the life of one very special person… She’s Molly the Maid, but I know she’s so much more than that to all of you.”

The auction closes at a staggering 10 million dollars — but suddenly, amid the chatter and music and gasps, Juan shouts for attention, pointing to the glass case at centre stage. The precious egg has vanished.

And it’s only page 130!

Meanwhile, just as gripping is Gran’s story, and how she was born to a rich couple that really did not want a girl. At 17, she falls for John (who would later become the long-time doorman at the Regency Grand). But she’s distracted by Algernon Braun, son of a wealthy couple, and is encouraged to marry him. This is of course years before the events in Molly’s story, but there’s a brief connection: the Brauns at the time had the Fabergé egg, and Algernon presents that to Gran instead of a ring.

In Molly’s story, the disappearance of and search for the egg at the hotel brings on a favourite character from previous Maid books — the no-nonsense Detective Stark.

Both narratives unfold in an entirely engaging way.

Dave Williamson is the Winnipeg author of 10 books, including six novels.

Nita Prose will launch The Maid’s Secret in Winnipeg launch on Wednesday, April 30 at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, where she’ll be joined in conversation by CTV Morning Live host Rachel Lagacé.