Tuesday, February 11, 2014

A Book Club Visit with Diana Chambers





Today's guest post is by Amy Ball who tells us about a recent book club meeting where the author attended the meeting.  


Over the course of my lifetime, I have gone to many, many book club meetings, but there has only been one where the author of the book showed up. At the Santa Rosa Mystery Book Club meeting hosted at Copperfields author Diana Chambers, who wrote STINGER, visited us and what a wonderful and delightful surprise it was. 

Diana was so engaging, and not at all what I expected especially considering she wrote about the gritty details of military equipment, the machinations of the CIA and the intense perils of war.  

She started by giving us her background, including the many careers she experienced prior to becoming an author, including retail manager, owner of a jewelry import business and a stylist for TV and movies (including the TV show, Hart to Hart), just to name a few. Along with these varied careers she told us amazing stories about what she experienced along the way, like what happened when she started an Indian jewelry import business…

Diana Chambers and Amy Ball

Diana was approached by an acquaintance who had moved to India, and convinced her to join in this jewelry business with her.  They agreed to meet at a hotel in India but when the time of their meeting arrived, her friend didn’t show up.  After a brief period of time to put herself together, Diana took control anyway and spent her savings on buying product to bring back with her to sell. While on her way home, she decided to stop in Hong Kong and out of a total coincidence, Diana ran into her friend, in an out-of-the-way underground restaurant. The friend didn’t have a great excuse for standing Diana up, but Diana just moved on and now she has a great story. 

Diana actually began STINGER as a screenplay and was later converted to a novel.  She got the idea from an article she had read in the newspaper about the technology. She was very intrigued with the smart bomb, and wanted to incorporate it into a novel. 


STINGER is set in Pershawar, Pakistan during the Soviet invasion. For readers who like novels set in foreign countries with a strong sense of place, a little bit of love and a dash of spy, this novel is for you.



4 comments:

  1. This is so cool. I am totally jealous.

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  2. Thank you, Amy! What a great piece. I only just heard about it from Deb Lacy. I really enjoyed the event too--as well as meeting you:-) Hope you'll check out the sequel, The Company She Keeps. Still the intrigue, but less military equipment, more romance! Thanks again. Hope to see you soon.

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