Hannah Tunnicliffe
Hannah Tunnicliffe (1979 –) is an internationally best-selling author for both children and adults. An advocate for mental health awareness, she is also co-host of the body-positivity podcast Bod Almighty and a voluntary youth counsellor. Hannah grew up on the Northshore in Auckland as the eldest of three children. In 1999, she graduated the University of Waikato with a Bachelor of Social Sciences before beginning a career in Human Resources. This career brought her all over the world, from Melbourne to across Europe and, eventually, to China. There, she would begin writing her first book, The Colour of Tea, after burning out from managing a large and busy casino in Macau. She completed a Diploma of Career Coaching through Auckland University of Technology in 2005, which inspired her to take a chance on a childhood dream to become an author — a dream that would eventually lead her to becoming the successful co-creator of the bestselling Detective Stanley series.
Published by the Scribner imprint of Simon & Schuster in 2012, The Colour of Tea is a contemporary novel about good food, bridging cultural divides and supporting fellow women, and the slow unravelling of Grace’s life and marriage and her attempts to salvage it. It was immediately successful: published in eight languages, it became a Canadian best-seller and was nominated as a Walmart Book of the Month. The success of and proceeds from The Colour of Tea allowed Hannah to pivot to a full-time writing career.
Hannah wrote Marjory and the Mouse (2014) as a charity fundraising project for the Cradle of Hope orphanage in Macau, through which it was also published. Marjory and the Mouse was the first trilingual picture book (English, Chinese, Portuguese) to be published in China.
Her next book was published in 2015 through the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster. In Season of Salt and Honey, wracked by grief following the sudden and tragic death of her fiancé Alex, Frankie flees to the secluded quiet of Alex’s family cabin. But Frankie can’t hide from the world forever, and soon reality becomes that much harder to ignore.
Set in the French countryside, Hannah’s third novel A French Wedding (Penguin Random House, 2018) follows a group of college friends reuniting many years later with hopes of new beginnings. But as interpersonal drama, long-held resentments, and new romances blossom and spread throughout the group, those new beginnings seem to come at a heavy cost. A French Wedding was featured and discussed in the New York Times Book Review.
When Hannah returned to Aotearoa she volunteered as a youth counsellor, returned to HR for a spin, began the body-positivity podcast Bod Almighty in 2021 with her friend, Michelle Sokolich, and teamed up with fellow-mom and future-partner Erica Harrison to create The Great Devonport History Mystery activity book in 2022 as a fundraising initiative for their children’s primary school.
She then returned to writing with half a dozen new stories cloaked in mystery and suspense. In 2024, she wrote The Pool (Ultimo Press), an adult mystery novel about the disappearance of once-life-of-the-party Baz King and a host of compelling, multi-motive suspects. The Pool examines the enduring shrapnel of tragedy, how it changes you, and how it shapes your future.
Her next adult novel, The Centre (2026), is a suspense title published by Ultimo Press. In it, a pair of sisters find their relationship on the rocks as one works painfully to pull her life back together and the other drifts deeper into the clutches of a wellness cult.
On the other side of mystery, Hannah and illustrator Erica Harrison teamed up once again to create the Detective Stanley series, following the dog-detective of the same name. What was originally conceived as an activity book blossomed into a junior graphic reader filled with references and nods to famous art movements and detective novels.
Detective Stanley and the Mystery at the Museum was published in 2025 through Flying Eye Books UK and was a finalist for the Esther Glen Junior Fiction award at the 2026 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Stanley, the just-retired detective, receives a letter at breakfast asking him to come to a crime scene at the museum, for which he is quickly framed.
Thrown back into the thick of things, Stanley returned in 2026 with Detective Stanley and the Green Thumbed Thief (Flying Eye Books UK), in which Detective Stanley and his pal Parker Pine must follow the clues and find the one stealing rare, priceless plants from the Narlybone Gardens.
Hannah and Erica have a third book set to release in 2027. In Detective Stanley and the Trouble on the Train (Flying Eye Books), Stanley’s plans for a relaxing holiday go off the rails as what should be a peaceful ride becomes a sudden locomotion commotion.
According to Hannah, what she writes is informed by thinking about the world she wants her daughters to inherit. She shares that love and passion outward through her youth counselling, wellness and creative writing workshops, talks and lessons, and her podcasts. In 2026, she and Erica hosted a detective adventure and comic workshop at the Auckland Writers Festival.
A mother a three-legged cat, three daughters, and a dog, Hannah now lives in Tamaki Makaurau where she enjoys good food, tea, and books.
