I’m sure lots of miniaturists love relaxing with a good book, and one I can heartily recommend as the subject is close to all our hearts, is Audrey Burges’ novel ‘The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone.’

Published by Macmillan this is Audrey’s debut novel which is officially launched on 1 June in hardback, priced at £16.99. It is currently available in audio and ebook formats and will be out in paperback from Macmillan in 2024.

This beautifully written book begins with the simple sentence: Once upon a time, there was a house.

It’s the story of thirty-four-year-old Myra Malone who lives in the Arizona mountains as a recluse. Her life revolves around a dolls house – a minuscule mansion of a dolls house which she inherited from her grandfather’s wife Trixie. It’s been a part of her life since she was a child, and she has been lovingly taught all the skills of making the furnishings by Trixie and her Grandpa Lou.

However, there is something magical about this mansion – rooms come and go, music echoes through the corridors, and it holds a strange fascination for Myra, but it’s not only her who has been caught up in its mysteries and magic. Myra blogs about the house, and her words and stories have captivated hundreds, thousands – tens of thousands of followers, many of whom send her miniatures for the mansion.

By chance, thirty-four-year-old Alex Rakes, an heir to a furniture business, hears about this miniature mansion and is shocked to see that it is a replica of his own home, passed down to him from his grandmother who disappeared when he was a child. Alex and Myra begin corresponding, gradually discovering how their lives and the mansions – large and small, are entwined.

Audrey’s Inspiration

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Audrey at her home in Richmond, Virginia, on a Zoom call, to ask her about the inspiration behind this book – and whether or not Myra’s minuscule mansion actually exists or is just a figment of her imagination.

Firstly, however, we chatted about the cover of the book – my copy was vivid red with its title beautifully embossed in silver, dotted here and there with photos of miniatures. Audrey said, “I didn’t want a picture of the mansion as a main picture on the cover because I wanted everyone to be able to imagine the mansion in their own way, using their own imagination. So, the publisher commissioned a miniaturist in the UK, Hannah Lemon, to make these miniatures from the book going by the descriptions and then creating the objects.

So far Audrey has only seen photos of the miniatures rather than the real thing. But even the photographs stunned her. “I was amazed when I saw the photo of the bed, as it was exactly how I imagined it – it was my great grandmother’s bed! It was as if she’d just lifted the memory from my head. The miniature of Trixie’s piano is amazing too. Hannah Lemon has such incredible talent.”

As an attorney, Audrey writes all the time, but she had not written creatively for 20 years and only started again in 2018. “I always wanted to write,” said Audrey. “I wrote a story when I was eight, The Dragon Who Could Not Fly, and my parents bound it and made it into a book for me. From the earliest time they’ve encouraged me to write.”

When Covid struck, Audrey began writing short stories, and in 2018, she decided to take part in the Write a Novel in a Month challenge. Through those stories, essays and the satire pieces she built up quite a following of readers, but her style, she say was quite dark. Then when everything stopped during lockdown, she saw on social media that people were trying out different things and, taking up old hobbies again, one of those things was making miniature dolls house kits.

Fascinated by miniatures

She realised too that with the pandemic going on, the book she’d written wasn’t consistent with the audience. “Nobody wanted to read dark. I had an idea that they needed something light-hearted. And following everybody’s new hobbies, a lot of authors were making kits. I have always loved miniatures – I’m fascinated by them. I never had a dolls house as a child. Being the only girl with four brothers in our family, I didn’t have a dolls house, but I would steal their Skeletor Castle and turn that into a house.

“So, I started thinking about a miniature house,” continued Audrey. “The title came to me in an instant, and with it came the name of the protagonist. The funny thing about this book is that I didn’t have to plan it. It was as if it was writing itself, it was all I could do to keep up.

“I usually struggle with names and titles, but this was a book coming to me title first. I had the name of the character in my head straight away. The characters aren’t actually based on real people but there are little bits of reality in the book. I use pieces of real people and I think there’s a little bit of me in Myra’s character. Also, some incidents were real such as the bit on Vienna sausages – that really happened!”

Audrey admits to being a perfectionist when it comes to writing – a trait which comes across in the book, as Myra is a perfectionist when it comes to making and placing her miniatures around the Mansion. Just as every word has to be there for a purpose in Audrey’s book, so every ornament and piece of furniture in the Mansion has to be perfect and in the perfect place.

Inspiration also came from experiencing covid with the isolation it brought with it, and people having to stay home. “You become introverted. It made everything seem way too small and way too big – and that affected the plot. But, as I say, it seemed to be writing itself – it was all I could do to keep up and I had it written in a month!”

Audrey added that as she was going over it, she also started looking for an agent. However, trying to get the book published took a lot of perseverance as it was rejected time and again. Finally, she found herself an agent who got her a book deal, which she was naturally delighted about. And since finishing this book, she has written another three and a half books. “I have always written very fast and I’m also working on a sequel to The Minuscule Mansion.”

And I for one am looking forward to reading it.

The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges. Available in audio and as an ebook. The hardback will be launched on 1 June 2023, priced £16.99

Discover more: https://audreyburges.com/