A MALVERN woman has seen her dream of having a novel published come true.

Rebecca Turley’s first book, a romance entitled Notice Me, was launched with a special event at the Pear Tree Hotel at Smite, near Worcester, where she works.

The book is a love story about a girl who befriends the daughter of a millionaire and then starts receiving letters from a mystery man who always signs them “notice me”.

Mrs Turley lives with her husband at Springfield Glade, in Malvern, near Dyson Perrins CE Academy, where she was previously a student.

She takes inspiration from the view of the Malvern Hills she has from her writing desk, and describes herself as a "hopeless romantic", enjoying both reading and writing love stories.

The 29-year-old used to write when she was younger, and three years ago discovered some of her old stories in the attic.

Notice Me was developed from one of those stories, which was half-written.

It took about six months to write and a year to edit. It was sent off to seven publishers and within about two months Mrs Hughes had received interest from three of them, opting to go with Austin and Macauley.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” she said. “I had problems with grammar and spelling when I was younger and publishing a novel wasn’t something I could imagine doing. But I learned a lot from the process, and the sequel I’m doing now is a lot more fine-tuned.”