Author Tea Cooper will be in Kincumber on Friday, October 4, to discuss her historical fiction novel, The Woman in the Green Dress.
The Words on the Waves event will be free, with book clubs set to discuss the novel during September.
Members of the Seniors Connect program are particularly encouraged to attend with Umina Beach Book Nook attending on the day to sell copies of a range of Cooper’s books.
Cooper is an Australian author of several bestselling, internationally acclaimed, twisty historical mysteries.
In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer.
These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.
Her books include The Naturalist’s Daughter (a USA Today best-seller), The Girl in the Painting, The Cartographer’s Secret (winner of the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award), The Fossil Hunter, The Butterfly Collector, and The Talented Mrs Greenway – all published in Australia by HQ, a division of HarperCollins.
This latest novel is all about green – the colour of envy, the colour deep within an opal, the colour of poison.
It all begins in 1854.
Della Atterton, bereft at the loss of her parents, is holed up in the place she loves best, the beautiful Hawkesbury in NSW.
Happiest following the trade her father taught her, taxidermy, Della has no wish to return to Sydney.
But the unexpected arrival of Captain Stefan von Richter on a quest to retrieve what could be Australia’s first opal precipitates Della’s return to Sydney and her Curio Shop of Wonders, where she discovers her enigmatic aunt, Cordelia, is selling more than curiosities to collectors.
Strange things are afoot and Della, a fly in a spider’s web, is caught up in events with unimaginable consequences.
The book then jumps to 1919.
When London teashop waitress Fleur Richards inherits land and wealth in Australia from her husband, Hugh, killed in the war, she wants nothing to do with it.
But Hugh’s lawyer is insistent, and so she finds herself ensconced in the Berkeley Hotel on Bent St, Sydney, the reluctant owner of a Hawkesbury property and an old curio shop, now desolate and boarded up.
As the real story of her inheritance unravels, a mystery surrounding an opal and a woman in a green dress emerges.
The talk will be held at 10am on Friday, October 4, at Brentwood Village, Kincumber.
RSVP encouraged at coordinator@wordsonthewaves.com.au