Wigan mum achieves literary ambition by getting debut novel into print

Jeanette Ellmer has published The Inheritance after telling her school teachers as a schoolgirl she would like to write a book one day.

Other news: Wigan man found not guilty of threatening two othersThat is now a dream realised courtesy of the tale of a young woman who inherits a house on the other side of the country only to realise things are not exactly what they seem on her arrival.

In a tale blending drama with humour she then, in an unexpected development, ends up becoming embroiled in the Italian underworld.

The book, published under the pen name JB Dunlop, is also a project partly born from tragedy as Jeanette was spurred into completing some of the things on her bucket list by the death of close friends.

The Ashton 56-year-old said: “I’ve always enjoyed reading from an early age and I said I would like to write a novel when I was in school. Some friends have recently died and I just thought life is too short not to do everything on my bucket list.

“I suppose in a way I’m the person in book. The inheritance turns out to be from someone she didn’t know existed and the people she then meets know more about her than she knows about herself. There’s a bit of romance and intrigue and it’s funny as well.”

Jeanette says she developed her creative imagination during tough times in her life when she would listen to music as a form of escapism and come up with stories in her mind.

And it was chart-toppers such as Rita Ora, Ed Sheeran and Rag and Bone Man who formed the soundtrack to Jeanette’s writing sessions during the two years it took her to create The Inheritance.

The book also includes several drawings done by Jeanette, who is further honing those skills on an art course.

Part of the proceeds from sales are also going to the British Heart Foundation as the husband of a close friend whose home in rural North Wales Jeanette would use for writing suffered a major heart attack.

Jeanette described getting the book ready for print as a huge personal achievement and says the literary bug has well and truly bitten as she is already penning a follow-up novel, juggling it around her day job as a finance manager for Ashton firm Safelok Components.

She said: “I was so proud of myself when it was published, I was like a little girl at Christmas.

“I’m writing another book now. It’s quite funny like the first one. It’s about a young woman who befriends a man with Asperger’s and autism. He lives with his brothers on a farm in Texas but when she goes over there things start going wrong on the ranch and no-one knows why.

“Now I’ve done one book I’ve really got into it. This new book will be from all the characters’ perspectives so I can get more angles into the story. It’s only in the last few years I’ve realised I can do things like this.”

The Inheritance is available on Amazon.