Book Club: Angela Misri's Portia Adams Adventure Series

Many of our talented alumni and faculty have stretched their writing muscles beyond journalism into the realms of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The RSJ Book Club is an occasional series created to highlight these works. If you know of a notable grad you'd like to see featured, send us an email at office.journalism@torontomu.ca.

Angela Misri, a Toronto-based journalist and author, teaches at the RSJ and is Digital Director at The Walrus. But in her spare time, she writes detective fiction for a younger audience: her Portia Adams Adventure series (external link)  features three books.

The first book of the series, Jewel of the Thames (external link) , was published in March 2014. Set against the background of 1930s England, it introduces 19-year-old Portia Adams, a budding detective with an interesting — and somewhat mysterious — heritage.

In the second book, Thrice Burned (external link) , Portia is still reeling from finding out that her guardian, Mrs. Jones, is actually her grandmother as well as the infamous Irene Adler, making Sherlock Holmes her grandfather. As a diversion, Portia throws herself into work and continues to consult with Scotland Yard on hard-to-crack cases.

Her third book, No Matter How Improbable (external link) , was published in March 2016. Being Sherlock Holmes’s granddaughter is getting to be a little much for Portia. She decides to escape the rabid London press by chasing a case all the way to Italy. When she returns, it seems the media frenzy has, finally, run its course — but now she’s got bigger things to worry about.

The series is described as new Sherlock Holmes mysteries to read, but now starring an inquisitive and astute young woman as the protagonist.

Below is a Q/A with the author:

What inspired you to write this series?

I have been a fan of mysteries and specifically Sherlock Holmes since I was a child, and to write about a descendant of the great detective is my best homage to the authors I have so admired.

What do you want readers to take away from this series?

I’d love it if my readers were surprised by the crimes and the mysteries, and taken with Portia and her world.

When did you realize you wanted to become an author?

Impossibly early. Maybe eight or nine years old.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned while writing the first book?  

I was surprised by how easy it was to write the mystery and how hard it was to write the character arcs. I think a lot of stories suffer from that issue - where the author gets so excited about the engine of the story that they forget to demonstrate progress in a character’s arc. People change over the course of a story, just as we humans change over our own life challenges.

What is your writing process like?

I like to write in the morning before anyone is up, and I like to write the first draft short and tight (like my journalism) and then go back in and flesh out scenes in my second draft.

What were some of your challenges while writing?

Getting distracted by other stories. Like many writers, I have a lot of characters yelling for attention in my head, and sometimes it’s very hard to ignore the shiny new character for the one you’ve been working on for a year.

What has your favourite reader reaction been?

One time I was sitting in the Chapters at Bloor, doing a book signing and things were slowing down, I was running out of books and thinking it was time to wrap things up when a young girl came through the doors. I was on the second floor, but directly across from the doors and she was arguing loudly with her mother, asking why they had to stop here on the way to her birthday lunch. Her mother kept coaxing her along, kind of in my direction and I found myself following their progress when the young girl looked up the stairs, saw me, and stopped, shocked, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. I was her birthday present. Her favourite author of her favourite book. That was the best moment as an author I’ve ever had.

Why do you think it's important for people to read this story?

I didn’t (and still don’t) see myself reflected in mystery stories, and Portia is very much a piece of me. She’s me as I could have existed in Baker Street. I wish I could have made her South Asian as well, but that’s a detective for a different storyline unfortunately.

What is the main message that you hope people take from the book?

That the characteristics people might make you feel bad about could also be your greatest asset. Hold onto your uniqueness and rise above the enticement of fitting in.

What advice would you give to someone looking to become an author?

Finish your story. I meet too many people who tell me they have a book in them, but they never write a word down. Or they start and never finish. Or they start, finish and then futz with the manuscript for a decade. Finish the book. Then finish another. Your fourth book is four times better than your first because you learn A LOT between book one and four, so get finishing.

Misri was also part of the My Double Life with journalists panel hosted by The Ryerson Journalism Research Centre where she, Marsha Barber and Waubgeshig Rice discussed their lives as both journalists and creative writers. Watch it below: