Amanda Cox to Kick Off Local Author Series on March 20

Join Chattanooga author Amanda Cox at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 20, to explore her two recent fiction titles. She’ll discuss The Edge of Belonging, winner of the 2021 Christy Book of the Year, and The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery, recipient of a Booklist starred review.

Cox is the first author of the 2022 season in the Collegedale Public Library’s Emily McDonald Local Author Series. She will share examples from each of her books and will talk about how her background in professional counseling influenced her process of creating characters. She writes layered, thought-provoking stories about characters searching for hope, healing, and a sense of belonging.

The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery (2021) is a dual-timeline story that deftly explores the complexity of a mother-daughter dynamic and the healing power of telling the truth. The Edge of Belonging (2020) is about a homeless man in middle Tennessee who finds an abandoned newborn. His greatest desire is to protect her from the experiences he had while in foster care. Twenty-four years later, the little girl named Ivy Rose goes back home to manage her grandmother’s estate sale and discovers clues about her mysterious adoption. In both novels, Cox explores the way secrets shape our lives and the lives of others.