LEDBURY author Suzette A Hill has found herself on something of a literary rollercoaster over the last couple of years, going from a woman who had never even thought about writing a novel to one who has just seen the publication of her first, with a contract signed and sealed for the already-written sequel, and first editions changing hands for hundreds of pounds.

Although Suzette had spent her working life immersed in books, teaching English Literature at Reading College in Berkshire, the idea of writing any fiction herself had never crossed her mind, but that all changed two years ago when the image of a sleek cat crept up on her.

"I was lolling about in bed one morning when I got this picture in my head of a fat, sleek cat on top of a gatepost," she recalls. The cat was shortly joined by the figure of a gangling Anglican vicar.

"I don't know where they came from but they began to haunt me, and I decided to see if I could write a short story and before I knew it, it had begun to grow like Topsy."

Having finished A Load of Old Bones, a tale of accidental murder narrated by a supercilious cat, a bone-obsessed dog and a rather unusual vicar, the next step was to find a publisher. "But I couldn't get a publisher or an agent and the rejection slips piled up," says Suzette, re-tracing her route into print. "Having written the book when I was 64 I decided I couldn't hang about waiting for publishers, so I published it myself.

"I had 500 copies printed and then the hard work began trying to sell it, but stocks went down and people were buying it."

And that, she thought, was probably that. In fact it was only the end of the first chapter and her rollercoaster ride was about to become even more exciting.

"I was approached by a new audio book company, Joyful Productions, who had been given my name by a bookshop manager who had suggested my book as it was funny and had three narrators, one of them a cat.

"In jest I said I thought one of the best voices would be Lesley Phillips and to my amazement he was interested. Better still, when Constable publishers were sent a copy and the first 50 pages of the sequel, they thought it was so mad and off-the-wall that they took me on."

Meanwhile, the story of Suzette's book was creating a stir among collectors and she was amazed to find that copies of the self-published edition were changing hands for extraordinary sums on the internet. "Initially, I was surprised to see copies offered for £25 (it originally sold for £10), then it went for £80-90 and then into the £100s - I saw one myself offered for £375. "

The rather more modestly priced Constable edition, £18.99, is available now from bookshops.