IMAGE: Veronica Shaw (Library Officer) on the left and the author Amanda Hampson on the right.
On Friday afternoon 10th November, Parkes Library was taken over by a tea party for a delightful author talk with Amanda Hampson, author of witty cosy crime novel “The Tea Ladies”.
Amanda brought her signature humour to the afternoon, she talked about the great amount of research she puts into her novels, meeting with figures from the time period, including a detective from the 1970s, as well as incorporating her own knowledge of fashion styles from a previous career in fashion. Amanda touched on how she tries to make storylines and characters memorable, with a hook at the end of each chapter and chapter titles reading like Famous Five novel titles.
Amanda’s main drive for writing her novels is wanting to deliver the same feeling she gets from books and presenting women, especially older women, in their true light as “queenagers” who have great strength and great friendships, rather than the annoying old women she has often encountered in other mediums.
Amanda also talked about being part of the second golden age of crime fiction and the impact Richard Osman’s “Thursday Murder Club” had on reinvigorating the genre and “blazing a path for the cosy crime wave” which has helped authors like herself.
Amanda’s next book “The Cryptic Clue: A Tea Ladies Mystery” is available next year in April. In the meantime, you can check out where the story began with her novel, “The Tea Ladies”.
You can find these books and more at The Book Dispensary in Forbes, who kindly supported this event as a bookseller. Keep an eye out on the Parkes Shire Library Facebook page for the next event.