Talk about persistence. Budding author Barbara Tabor has spent 12 years trying to get her debut book published. She completed the novel, Force of Circumstances, in 1998 only to be faced with hundreds of rejection letters. Until now.
Mrs Tabor, 77, tells People: "The letter from Lulu Publishers came completely out of the blue. They said they read it and liked it. It was fantastic. I never thought it would happen and I didn't want to leave the world without it being published."
Force of Circumstances tells the story of an English family and how they were affected by the war. She was inspired to write the book after her husband Jack died suddently in 1987. "I found the time to put pen to paper and it gradually built up.
"I didn't realise how hard it is for an unknown publisher." Yet, that has not put her off. The grandmother has already started work on her second.