Having told herself all her life that she wanted to write a book, Becky Jones had reached the point where she was wondering if that was just something she said to make herself sound more interesting. Then she found a diary from her teenage years in a box in the loft and it confirmed that this was a long-held ambition, so 30 years later she started writing.
Her novel, Searching for Amy, is now published. It tells the story of a teenage girl whose first sexual experience is videoed and shared online without her consent. Interestingly, given the diary, the author tapped into her own adolescent memories but set the story in today's world.
'My novel was written with the audience of young adults in mind, but it is getting lots of interest from parents of teenagers and other young adults,' Becky says. 'It's hard for those of us who didn't grow up with social media and the internet to imagine the challenges our kids face growing up in today's world. I wanted to explore that in the book; along with my memories and what I saw from my teenage kids and step kids, I wanted to put my readers into the mind of someone living through the horror of seeing your most intimate moment shared online and how you get on with your life after that.'
The writing journey has been a huge learning curve - Becky did a course with Jericho Writers, based in Oxford, and has now self-published the book with her own imprint, Elm Books. Searching for Amy has also been selected for the 1in200 initiative trying to get self-published authors into local bookshops.
The book is available on Blackwells website and on Amazon, and is stocked by Jaffe and Neale in Chipping Norton and The Woodstock Bookshop. You can find out more about the book and the author by visiting www.booksbybeckyjones.uk
