Tirzah Price is the author of Pride and Premeditation, the first book in the Jane Austen Murder Mystery series that retells Pride and Prejudice, but with way more murders, and a Lizzie Bennet who is an aspiring lawyer. The Nerd Daily recently got to sit down with Tirzah, and she told us about her inspirations behind this story, her writing process, her upcoming writing projects, and more!
Hi Tirzah! Thanks so much for joining us! First, tell us a little about yourself!
Thank you for having me! I am a YA writer, but I also work as a contributing editor at Book Riot, where I write content and newsletters, and co-host a couple of different podcasts. I have an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I live in Michigan.
Your debut novel, Pride and Premeditation is out on April 6th 2021! What can readers expect when they pick up the book?
Murder, mayhem, and lots of banter! I had so much fun writing a mystery retelling of Pride and Prejudice, and I like to describe it as a retelling that kept the characters from the original novel but threw out the plot. Most if not all of your favorite characters from the original are still present, but they’re in very different scenarios and a slightly ahistorical Regency London setting. I hope that means that both Austenites and those new to Austen’s work can enjoy Pride and Premeditation.
What draws you to YA?
I have loved YA since I discovered Meg Cabot at age 12, and I joke that I never grew out of that love. But I think I enjoy it so much because everything feels new and intense and so very important in YA stories, and there are just so many great storytellers who are publishing such a wide range of stories about all different types of experiences, both realistic and fantastical. In many ways I felt like my teen years were rather average if not downright boring, so reading about different teen experiences provides a nice escape as well!
Do you have a favourite YA trope? How about your least favourite one?
I am a total enemies-to-lovers fangirl! My favorite teen movie is 10 Things I Hate About You, and I think there’s something really exciting about watching two characters who dislike each other start to develop feelings for one another. I don’t really have a least favorite trope—I enjoy all sorts of tropes, especially when they’re done in exciting new ways.
What inspired you to reimagine Jane Austen novels as murder mysteries?
I think that Jane Austen’s characters really lend themselves to being amateur sleuths, albeit in surprising ways! I’ve always loved mysteries, and I really enjoyed the mini-series adaptation of Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James, so thinking about what Lizzie might care about and how she would go about solving a mystery was really fun. And even though Austen’s novels are social stories and not mysteries, it doesn’t hurt that she usually has some excellent characters that are easy to cast as villains!
Why did you pick Pride and Prejudice in particular to start out the Jane Austen Murder Mystery series, and what kind of research went behind Pride and Premeditation?
Pride and Prejudice has always felt to me like Austen’s best known and most widely read book despite being her second published work, so it seemed like a natural place to start if one was going to write an entire series. As far as research goes, I re-read the source material, of course, and I did a lot of research into the legal and justice systems of the Georgian and Regency periods. Their idea of crime, and how society dealt with it, was a lot different than the law enforcement we see today—London didn’t even have a formal police force until the 1820’s. But I also did a lot of research into the details of the time period and everyday life. Even though my novel is ahistorical in a few notable ways (Lizzie Bennet wouldn’t have had a hope of being called to the bar in the early 1800’s!), I wanted to ground the story in the time period as much as possible.
What did your writing process look like for Pride and Premeditation?
I’m a very detailed outliner to begin with, and because I’d never really tackled a mystery before, I went all out outlining the novel down to the scene using an Excel spreadsheet. This was actually really helpful because it allowed me to keep track of various threads and note when and where to tease out the mystery elements. However, the mystery really began to come together in revisions. I did two rounds of revision before my editor saw the manuscript, and another two rounds with her editorial feedback.
Any writing projects on the horizon you can tell us about?
Yes! I am working on revisions for Sense and Second-Degree Murder, a retelling of Sense and Sensibility that will be out in 2022, and I’m drafting a retelling of Mansfield Park called Manslaughter Park, which will follow sometime in 2023.
Finally, what are some books you would recommend to readers who are going to fall in love with Pride and Premeditation?
If you like the Regency era setting and adventure, I definitely recommend Dangerous Alliance by Jennieke Cohen! If you want a very different but very excellent Pride and Prejudice retelling, then you can’t go wrong with Pride by Ibi Zoboi!
