A freelance journalist used a spot of PR work at a local cemetery as inspiration for her first novel.

Former Bristol Evening Post reporter Louise Douglas was campaigning to save the city’s Arnos Vale cemetery when she read an inscription on a tombstone.

This set her creative juices flowing, leading her to write The Love of my Love.

“I’ve been doing freelancing for over ten years and PR work for the last few,” she told holdthefrontpage.

“I was doing PR work at this Victorian cemetery that was in danger of being developed. There was a big campaign to save it.”

Louise, real name Lesley Turner, initially started writing a series of stories with the intention of intertwining them but kept coming back to just one.

The Love of my Life is set in the fictional town of Watersford, parts of which resemble Bristol and the cemetery is rebranded Arcadia Vale.

It is a story of love, passion and grief as a young woman tries to cope after losing the ‘love of her life’ in a car accident.

Louise has not rested on her laurels though and is now finishing off her second novel as part of a two-book deal.

If the titles sell well, publisher Pan Macmillan has retained an option for a third book.

In the meantime she is still doing PR and writing freelance features for the local and national media.