A leading Yorkshire writer will be presenting her latest historical romance at York Central Library's Marriott Room on Friday 1 May at 2pm. Entrance will be free.

Valerie Wood will be reading excerpts from The Long Walk Home. This latest novel - her fourteenth - is set in Hull and London, and tells the adventures of a young petty thief and his high-born friend.

Valerie's story makes interesting reading: raised in the West Riding mining villages, the former model joined a creative writing class when her children left home. From this came the confidence to write, and her career as a novelist was confirmed when her first book, The Hungry Tide, won the Catherine Cookson Prize for Fiction.

She continues to work as a volunteer reader and editor with the Hull & District Talking Magazine for the Blind, and always encourages budding authors, which she once was.

A one-time York resident, Valerie belongs to The Society of Authors and the Romantic Novelists' Association and writes historical romances set in her native Yorkshire. She is currently working on her fifteenth novel.

City of York Council is presenting this event in keeping with its aspiration to make York a City of Culture.