A BRADFORD lass who always dreamed of becoming an author is living her dream as she celebrates the release of her second book.

It was a meeting with famous children’s author Jacqueline Wilson at a book signing which lit the flame of Jess Kitching’s ambition.

The 29-year-old, a former pupil of Cavendish Primary School in Eccleshill and Dixons City Academy, initially trained to be a teacher before moving to Australia.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Jess had always dreamed of becoming an authorJess had always dreamed of becoming an author (Image: n/a)

It was then she began to take her writing more seriously and eventually got a publishing deal.

Her first book, The Girl She Was Before was released last year, and speaking to the Telegraph & Argus from her home in Sydney, Jess said: “When the first book came out, it went better than I could have dreamed.

“A publisher in Denmark, they’ve bought the translation rights, so we’re going to be going over and doing a tour of Denmark and some crime festivals there, which is very exciting.

“It was a huge relief that it had gone well. When you think about when you’re a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up, I was always that girl that was like ‘I’m going to write stories, I want to be like Jacqueline Wilson’.

“To actually get to write books is just incredible.”

Her second book, How To Destroy Your Husband comes out today (October 23). It’s a revenge-based thriller where a month before her wedding, a woman finds out her fiancée has been cheating on her.

She digs deeper into his life, only to find everything about him is a lie.

And after signing a further five-book deal with her publisher, Jess is already working on her next novel and has hopes to launch it in the UK when she’s back home – at Bradford’s iconic Waterstones store.

“You’re talking about book two, editing book three and writing book four,” she said.

“It’s one of those things, you just feel really lucky to be able to do it.”

The dream for Jess is to see her stories translate to the screen and speaking about her journey, she said: “It doesn’t feel real, it feels like a dream.

“With my first book I was almost like ‘I don’t deserve this’. It was this really weird feeling where I didn’t actually enjoy it because I was just so worried and being like ‘this can’t be real, this doesn’t happen to me’.

“Now, I’m more ‘no, you’ve worked hard on it’ - so it’s nice to be able to celebrate with people.”