Amanda Lees

Countdown with ...

Amanda Lees

Amanda was born in Hong Kong and survived both a convent boarding school and a Jesuit boys’ school before being summarily ejected from the latter. She gets her thirst for adventure from her parents who met in the jungle in Borneo where her mother had set up a hospital and her father, a former Gurkha Intelligence officer and Oxford-educated spy, was probably up to no good.

Amanda has a degree in drama and her first telly job was as a member of the Communist Resistance in ’Allo ‘Allo. This involved running around with a dachshund tucked under one arm and deploying her best cod French accent. It has all been dramatically downhill since.

Amanda has conducted a love coaching phone-in from the sofa of Richard & Judy and wooed the viewers on Channel 5 Live. She is currently working on a new spy thriller book series as well as a standalone psychological thriller.

She is the author of satirical novels Selling Out and Secret Admirer and YA thriller trilogy Kumari, Goddess of Gotham.

Interviewed 16 January 2021

Ten words to sum up your working life to date ...

An amazing rollercoaster ride I wouldn’t change for the world.

Nine things you can see from where you're sitting ...

A snoozing pup, a snoring cat, a vase of tulips, a rubber lizard, photos of my parents, three Chinese household gods, my mum’s rosewood cabinet that she left to me, my very last chocolate in its box and piles of books everywhere.

Eight minutes to prepare a meal. What's it going to be ?

Rice noodles with tons of veg stir-fried with garlic, ginger, spring onions, mirin and soy followed by coconut ice cream with lashings of homemade sloe gin poured over it.

Seven people you'd like to go for a drink with ...

Keanu Reeves, Nancy Wake, Michelle Obama, Chris Packham, Don McCullin, Dorothy Parker, Jacinda Ardern (yes, I know some of them are dead).

Six things you can't live without ...

Coffee, books, art, music, certain people, hope.

Five favourite words ...

Glorious, discombobulated, oleander, love, yes.

Four places you'd run away to ...

Hong Kong, New York, The Maldives, The Scottish Highlands and Islands

Three books you've bought recently ...

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker, Valentina by Susie Lynes and Humble Pi by Matt Parker

Two things that make you rant ...

Bullies and injustice

One thing you'd tell your teenage self ...

Believe in yourself above everything because it will all be OK.