This is a proud moment as the first of my former students to get published, to my knowledge, makes the pages of the Ayrshire Post.

Hayleigh Barclay of Prestwick has written Girl of the Ashes, a gothic vampire thriller that your whole family can read and discuss over a rare, dripping, steak with chips dipped in tomato sauce.

I remember Hayleigh well as an essentially cheeky student whose honours dissertation was rubbish. It wasn’t, she was………cheeky.

Anyhow, buy this book, or else. Or else whit? I’m thinking, but you don’t want to cross me.

Scotland 1897. Three hundred and fifty years ago the Inservium overthrew the government of a remote town in northern Scotland and for over three centuries the Phoenix vampires have faced persecution. Eighteen-year-old Elise de Velonte is now caught in a war which threatens to wipe out her entire bloodline. Between hunting and killing the corrupt Councillors of the Inservium, and fighting against an ancient curse which is tearing apart the families of her coven, she blurs the lines of love and hate to become a warrior and survivor. Girl of the Ashes has the YA fantasy appeal of Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments) and Richelle Mead (Bloodlines, Vampire Academy). Like these books, Girl of the Ashes mixes the magical world with our own and focuses on a female lead trying to negotiate growing up with the burden of saving those she loves.