Day in the sun for new author

A Rockingham woman is proving it’s never too late to follow your passion, releasing her first book at the age of 76.

English-born Maggie Day moved to Australia 40 years ago but can still remember her younger days vividly.

Day, who worked as a legal secretary for most of her life, said she had always been an avid reader and a writer — but never seriously.

After retiring, she found time to let her imagination run wild onto many a blank page.

Her first published work, Home Away from Home, was released on March 20 in the UK by Melrose Books and follows the lives of those who lived in an Edinburgh boarding house during the 1970s.

“This story is based on a theatrical boarding house in Edinburgh and I stayed there for a year so the character Margaret in the book is based a little bit on me — not totally, just a little,” Day said.

“The lady who ran the boarding house, Betty Finnie, was a wonderful woman and while I was there she said to me ‘I wish I could write a book’, and you can imagine that having theatrical people coming and going it was very interesting.” Day spent six months writing the book, which she describes as involving romance, humour, murder and mayhem.

She has since written two more to make it a trilogy and hopes to have them published soon. “I really think my market would be Poms and Scots and possibly an older audience who would be able to relate to the period,” Day said.

“It was a very different world to now.

“Reading it back as a book now, I can place myself there so clearly. It was a really interesting time.”

Home Away from Home is available from Melrose Books and Amazon. Day is interested in having people review her book and welcomes those interested to contact her on 0422 278 368.