August Smith, from Hilton, grew up Victoria Garesfield and spent a lot of time in North Yorkshire, all of which appear as a backdrop to her novels The Wrong Life and Still Breathing.
He latest, Still Breathing, follows the life of a woman and her children who escape from a life of domestic abuse.
Her previous offering, The Wrong Life, reached number three in the mystery and suspense section.
Ms Smith said: “Both of the books are about triumph in impossible circumstance. It is a horrible feeling when you are trapped and cannot get away.”
Ms Smith’s career began after she completed a creative writing course at night school in Ripon, following which she began to produced short stories, restaurant and film reviews, and gardening articles among others for local magazines.
One of her more interesting jobs was when she began writing for Your Cat magazine, where she produced an agony aunt column for cats under the pseudonym Blue Bell, the name of her own pet.
She said: “People really loved it because I would write back really cheeky answers. I did that for 16 years.”
Blue Bell also featured in her book Blue Bell Diary Of A Cat under the pen-name Jan D‘Lord which was published by Michael O’ Mara Books and saw the author doing book signings at Waterstones and elsewhere.
Her short stories also appeared in a Readers Digest collection called Best Loved Cat Stories, which was released in 1997.
The 69-year-old said: “I am in there with Rudyard Kipling, Lewis Carol and Mark Twain. PD Woodhouse is in there, so I am in good company.”
The writer went on to spend nine years in South Africa where while producing copy for a golf magazine, she
began worked on her novel The Wrong Life, which starts off in a pit village similar where she spent her early childhood.
Here she drew on personal experience as inspiration for the novel.
At age four while out in a cold schoolyard she had a distinct feeling she was in the wrong body.
The result is a book about reincarnation and the theft of another person’s soul.
Amazon reviewers have praised the books for their vividness.
Ms Smith said: “What the readers like is the emotional ride they get out of it and readers tell me the characters hit them hard.
“Both stories are set in our beautiful region, using the flora and fauna as a background to touching and tense tales with characters we will all recognise.”
Both books are available from Amazon either as paperbacks or eBooks.
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