PAST and present collide in the latest novel from former Keighley town clerk Debbie Spink.

Keighley woman Debbie – who writes under her maiden name Chase – has written her first novel set in a distant century.

Debbie, who devotes more of her time to writing after partially retiring, said A Step Back in Time offered readers a tale of love, passion and betrayal.

Hannah Palmer, legal PA to the sexy Max Reynolds, finds herself going back to the 1500s and re-living the traumatic life of Ursula Pole.

Real-life woman Ursula was the daughter of Margaret Pole, second cousin to King Henry VIII and a much-loved of the family until accused of treason. Under the order of the king she was beheaded in 1541.

Readers are invited to walk in Ursula Pole’s footsteps and experience the sad death of her first baby, her marriage to the violent Henry Stafford, and the unbreakable bond between herself and the enigmatic Max Reynolds lookalike Gregory Walsh.

Debbie said: “Set in the small town of Havant in Hampshire and also Warblington Manor, which in the present day is just a turret reaching up into the sky, this is a story to send shivers down your spine.

Born Debbie Chase in Hampshire in 1959, the author has lived in West Yorkshire since 1979. She is the eldest of five children and now has one daughter Lara and two cats Ruby and Teddy.

Debbie has always been a keen reader and has enjoyed writing since school, her proudest moment being when she achieved an A+ for an essay.

She has had many short stories and poems for adults and children published in books and magazines, and two pocket novels Planning On Love and Romance On The Run published by My Weekly. She has written several full-length books, the first combining fact and fiction called You to Me Are Everything.”

The second book, based on a real job, was entitled The Confessions of a Pet Sitter and was told from the pet’s point of view, while the third was a sequel entitled What a Catastrophe.

Debbie has also published a collection of poems and the novel Educating Maggie. All the books are available on Amazon as paperbacks or Kindle e-books.