Today we are very excited to share an interview with Author Elizabeth C. Bunce (In Myrtle Peril: Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery 4)!
Meet the Author: Elizabeth C. Bunce
Elizabeth C. Bunce is the Edgar Award–winning author of Premeditated Myrtle and the Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery series, and several young adult historical fantasies, including A Curse Dark as Gold. She grew up on a steady diet of Sherlock Holmes, Trixie Belden, and Quincy, M.E., and always played the lead prosecutor in mock trial. She has never had a governess, and no one has ever accused her of being irrepressible, but a teacher did once call her “argumentative”—which was entirely untrue, and she can prove it. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and their cats. You can find her online at www.elizabethcbunce.com.
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About the Book: In Myrtle Peril (Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery 4)
An Edgar® Award–Winning Series
Myrtle Hardcastle—twelve-year-old Victorian Amateur Detective—returns to investigate the case of a missing heiress lost at sea, an inquiry that runs aground when a murder in plain sight has no apparent victim.
When a mysterious girl attempts to stake her claim to the Snowcroft family fortune, Myrtle Hardcastle’s father, a lawyer, is asked to help prove—or disprove—the girl’s identity. Is this truly Ethel Snowcroft, believed to be lost at sea with her parents, or a con artist chasing a windfall? Mr. Hardcastle’s pursuit of the case takes a detour when he’s hospitalized for a tonsillectomy—only to witness a murder. Or does he? With no body at the scene, Myrtle and her governess, Miss Judson, fear the so-called murder was a feverish delusion—until a critical piece of evidence appears.
But where’s the victim? And who at the hospital could be harboring murderous intent? Myrtle is determined to find out before the killer comes after her father.
With stakes this high, her sleuthing has put Myrtle, her family, and the patients and staff at the Royal Swinburne Hospital In Myrtle Peril.
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~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Whenever I write a Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery, I’m always on the lookout for the most interesting setting or situation I can put my characters in—some new aspect of the Victorian world my readers might not have encountered yet. For In Myrtle Peril, that became a 19th century hospital, with all the most modern 1890s medical technology and the dangers inherent in medicine during an era before antibiotics.
But the second part of a Myrtle mystery is the mystery itself—and those are often inspired by real-life events, either from history or from my own life. In this case, it was when my husband inherited a beautiful model ship built by his late father. It had been in storage for a while, so it arrived with a coat of dust on the sails and rigging, giving it a ghostly, abandoned—and very mysterious!—feel. The very weekend that the model ship took up pride of place in my living room, I watched a new documentary on the Mary Celeste. This real life nautical mystery from 1872 centers around the disappearance of a ship’s entire crew and her passengers—including the captain’s wife and two-year-old daughter. Suddenly, I wanted very much to know what had happened to little Sophy Briggs—and what would happen if someone suddenly showed up, claiming to be the long-lost girl. I mixed in a few more historical incidents and the plot for In Myrtle Peril was born!
YABC: Who is your favorite character in the series?
Well, Peony the cat, of course! Seriously, we all know who the real star of these books is.
YABC: What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?
I’m not sure “proud” is really the right word, but I managed to work in a delightfully macabre real-life historical artifact that has traumatized generations of schoolchildren in Iowa. The State Historical Society museum houses a terrifying collection of oddities assembled by a Des Moines physician during the early part of the 20th century: various objects swallowed by patients. They run the gamut from fairly mundane things like teeth or coins, to needles and safety pins (!!!), and even stranger items like fishhooks and bones of all kinds (All. Kinds.). I may have taken a bit of creative license with a few of the objects that appear in the display Myrtle encounters, but it’s yet another bit of Bizarre Victoriana that makes these books so much fun to write!
YABC: When writing a series, what do you think has been the most challenging part?
So here’s my Pro Tip for Aspiring Series Writers: whatever you do on Book 1, whatever clever conventions you establish, you will then have to repeat on each subsequent volume!
In Premeditated Myrtle, the first Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery, I gave each of the chapters a clever title (mostly legal Latin terms), and an epigraph from a scholarly treatise composed by the erudite H.M. Hardcastle (who of course is Myrtle). In Book 1, that was a guide to investigators. So in each following book, I’ve had to come up with another 25 or so chapter titles and epigraphs—which means figuring out what the topic of H.M. Hardcastle’s scholarly treatise will be. For In Myrtle Peril, that became the work “Foundations of Legal Medicine,” or a guide to forensic medicine.
While I can honestly say that sometimes those chapter titles and epigraphs can be the hardest part of a chapter, they’re also one of my favorite parts of the series.
YABC: What’s a book you’ve recently read and loved?
I’m continuing my foray into classic mysteries that I may have missed over the years. Lately, I’ve really been enjoying Lillian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who series (The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern, etc.) about investigative reporter Jim Qwilleran and his feline sidekicks. They’re great fun, and Braun’s understanding of Feline Idiosyncrasies is incomparable.
YABC: Which book(s) in the series is(are) your favorite?
Well, naturally I’m going to point out all the Delightful Features of the newest volume, In Myrtle Peril, with its shipwreck drama, medical mayhem, and the long-lost heiress! Go read that one immediately! And I could also note all the awards and nominations racked up by Premeditated Myrtle, and Book 3, fan favorite Cold-Blooded Myrtle (now out in paperback!)… but since you’re pressing me for an answer, I really love book 2, How to Get Away with Myrtle, in which a dull railway holiday to the seaside is livened up with jewel thieves and murder, and Great Aunt Helena has (sadly) probably not killed someone. I had so much fun sending Myrtle on the worst holiday ever!
YABC: Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?
Can we nominate Peony again? Seriously, she eats evidence. A runner up would be Mr. Hardcastle, Myrtle’s father, who is the source of much of the mayhem in In Myrtle Peril…
YABC: How many books do you plan for this series?
That depends on the readers! I could happily write nothing but Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries for the rest of my career. I won’t—there are other projects in the works—but I will never run out of ideas for more Myrtle stories! The series continues to gain momentum and get more and more fans with each new release, and my editor has confided in me that she would love Myrtle to be “a Forever Series.”
YABC: What would you say is your superpower?
Sticktoitiveness. A more heroic term is perseverance, but in my case I think it’s really just a dogged willingness to stick a project out for the long haul, whether I really feel like it or not! I think all novelists need this trait, as it sustains us when the work itself is Not Fun, like when you have back-to-back deadlines during a pandemic and have to balance publicity with line edits and you still have to make dinner, and all the plumbing in your house falls apart and you’ve had to cancel that dentist appointment for the third time… Yup. Sticktoitiveness. (Incidentally, that might also be Myrtle’s superpower, too… And excellent trait for Investigators, as well!)
YABC: What advice do you have for new writers?
Stick to it!
Title: In Myrtle Peril (Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery 4)
Author: Elizabeth C. Bunce
Release Date: 10/04/2022
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Genre: Mystery
Age Range: Middle-grade, 10+
