A 93-YEAR-OLD author is having his two of his latest books published on the same day.

Bill Spence, also known as author Jessica Blair, will see his 27th novel The Life She Left Behind appear in hardback on April 6, along with the paperback of Just one More Day, by Piatkus, an imprint of Little Brown.

Just One More Day, a story about two young women working with Bomber Command on the Lincolnshire Airfields, is based on Bill’s days in the RAF during the Second World War, while The Life She Left Behind fuses together his romantic historical sagas of the present day and his writing of Westerns.

Bill’s first romantic saga The Red Shawl, as Jessica Blair, was published in 1993 and is set in Whitby and was based on research he had done for Harpooned: A history of Whaling in 1980 (Conway Maritime Press).

Bill, who lives in Ampleforth and is writes a book review column for the Gazette & Herald, said he had first become interested in reading as a child.

“My parents were both keen readers and I spent a lot of time looking at encyclopaedias,” he said.

“After the war I wanted to write about my experiences, mainly for my family, and it went on from there to write novels with a wartime setting.”

Bill went on to write 36 books with a Western theme before his first romantic novel, which his publisher decided would be better to publish under a female name.

“I do enjoy writing and I suppose I am a bit romantic and certainly sentimental,” he said.

“I like writing so much I certainly don’t think I will ever stop - it is something that keeps me young at heart.”

For more information, go to jessicablair.co.uk