My Story

Many of us may have craved the time to sit down and write the novel that has always been bubbling away within, and lockdown provided exactly that opportunity. For Essex Life contributor Chris Penhall, publishing her debut novel was a childhood ambition realised. Here she tells her story of literary success

- Chris Penhall

When my novel, The House That Alice Built, won the Choc Lit Search for a Star competition in 2019, I was finally within reach of achieving my childhood ambition of becoming a published author.

It had taken quite a while to get there. Growing up, our house was full of books my parents had borrowed from the library and I still remember the excitement of receiving books such as What Katy Did and Little Women as gifts as a little girl. I can’t remember not wanting to be a writer because I loved reading so very much.

It was when I lived in Cascais in Portugal, in the mid 1990s with my daughters and late husband, that I tried to write. Something about the change in environment and the beauty of the place inspired me, and I wrote a short story and a novel. I even tried my hand at a screenplay, which I entered in a competition. None of these were any good at all, but looking back, at least I managed to finish them. My time in Portugal also eventually became the background to my book. The House That Alice Built is a sunny, summer read set in the very country that got me writing in the first place.