A FORMER Salisbury teacher turned children’s author is about to publish the final installment in a trilogy of books about an ex-racing greyhound who transforms the life of a dysfunctional family.

Jayne Woodhouse, who is originally from the West Midlands and spent 11 years at a school in Birmingham before moving to Britford Primary School as deputy head teacher, has been living in Southampton for the past few years.

She has been writing curriculum resources for schools, working for organisations including the BBC, Longman and Heinemann but always dreamed of writing fiction.

Now back in Salisbury, her first novel, The Stephensons’ Rocket proved to be a hit and the sequel, And Rocky Too followed.

The third novel will be on its way shortly.

The novels centre around the Stephenson family, and Woodhouse doesn’t shy away from exploring their imperfections, painting a realistic picture of a world where everything isn’t always rosy.

“It’s about real life issues,” she said. “These are problems the children reading may encounter, or people they know may encounter.

“The dad is a ne’er do well who is always off on some scheme or other, leaving mum to do everything.”

“The books do have a feel-good factor but there isn’t a glib ‘happy ending’, instead they deal with the problems that they have.”

Woodhouse is hoping to go into schools in Salisbury to talk to children about her work and to encourage them to read and enjoy fiction of all kinds.

“School visits are one of my favourite things in the world,” she says, “and it does make a real difference, I think. It makes the writing process more real to the children. For more information, to order copies, or to arrange a school visit, go to jaynewoodhouse.wordpress.com.