Local Author and Book Festival Patron Awarded a MBE

Published on: 3 Jan, 2022
Updated on: 5 Jan, 2022

Adele Parks – Photo ©Teesside University

By Martin Giles

Bestselling author and Guildford resident Adele Parks has been awarded a MBE in the New Year Honours for services to literature.

Ms Parks is also a patron of the Guildford Book Festival.

The medal worn by those awarded a MBE

She commented on Twitter: “I could not feel more proud and happy to be included on the Queen’s honours list. What a way to kick off 2022, being awarded an MBE… I am totally blown away! I’m currently the closest I’ve ever been to speechless!”

Adele Parks was born in Teesside. She studied English Language and Literature at Leicester University, and after graduating worked in advertising and as a management consultant.

In 2010 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of Letters by Teesside University.

Her first novel Playing Away was published in 2000. Four million copies of her UK editions have been sold and her novels have been translated into more than 30 different languages.

She has had published twenty-one bestselling novels in twenty-one years, 19 contemporary, including the number one bestsellers, Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck and two historical Spare Brides and If You Go Away, set during and after the First World War.

Describing herself in an online biography she says: “I’m very chatty and fairly opinionated. I think it’s true to say once I get going, it’s quite hard to shut me up.

“I passionately believe that reading is a basic right. I am a judge for the Costa Book Awards and The British Book Awards which is a great privilege and an amazing experience. During my career, I’ve lived in Italy, Botswana and London. Now I live happily in Guildford, Surrey with my husband, son and cat.”

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