A SINGLE mum who has had to overcome many obstacles to support her family has secured a publishing deal for her novel.

Jacqueline Grima, from Great Sankey, is celebrating after seeing her book 'Only in Whispers' on sale on Amazon.

A dark drama involving family secrets and lies, Only in Whispers follows a woman as she tries to find out what happened to her in the past.

While working as a teaching assistant and bringing up her three children, Jacqueline began to feel isolated and wanted to do something for herself.

The 49-year-old said: "Life has been quite challenging and the writing kept me moving forward, I hope I have set a good example to my boys to persevere and keep going at something."

She enrolled on an Open University creative writing course and was then offered transitional fees for a masters.

Jacqueline recently completed the masters in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and wrote Only in Whispers over her three year distance-learning degree.

After re-writing the copy several times, Jacqueline felt confident to send it out to potential publishers, receiving interest from Manatee Books.

Despite working two part-time jobs alongside her masters course and looking after her three boys, the talented writer was awarded a prize for her outstanding contribution to the Manchester Writing School.

Jacqueline praised the distance learning course for enabling people with families and other commitments to access valuable resources and teaching.

She added: "There have to be more opportunities for people from low-income backgrounds who struggle to get their work noticed as they don't know people in the industry."

While battling two chronic illnesses, Jacqueline has been sending out her work to publishers for a long time and received numerous rejections along the way.

She said: "Doing the masters course made a big difference as I got into a community of writers and started to make contacts.

"It has been a very long road but I think establishing an online presence and joining the writing community helped."

Manatee Books offered Jaqueline a two-book contract and she is already working on her second novel.

"It only takes one person to say 'yes', she added.

Giving advice to budding writers or those who fall victim to writers' block, Jacqueline said: "Just keep going, no matter how many rejections you may get. Write for yourself and make contact with other writers.

"Learn from your rejection letters and keep trying to improve your copy."