IT took 10 years for English teacher Jenny McLachlan to plan her first novel about four teenage girls.

Now, less than a year after it was accepted by publisher Bloomsbury, she has a £150,000 book deal for a series of four and the first has just been published.

Just as Flirty Dancing hit the bookshelves last month, Jenny was making her emotional exit from Uckfield Community Technology College after teaching there for 14 years.

It was the school and its pupils that inspired the first book, which is set in a similar school and follows the stories of a group of four former best friends known as the Ladybirds.

And it was some of her Year 8 pupils who read part of the manuscript and gave their verdict.

“That was pretty nerve-wracking,” said Jenny, who grew up in Eastbourne and lives there with husband Ben, a fellow teacher at UCTC, and their two daughters aged six and four.

“It was the first time the book had been read by its intended audience, rather than someone close, like my mum, but luckily they absolutely loved it. I had to leave the room while they were reading it but a teacher said she could hear lots of laughter. And the best thing was that they said that they very quickly forgot it was me who had written it and it was like reading a real writer.”

Each of the four books, aimed at a 12-plus readership, tells the story of one of the girls. In Flirty Dancing, Bea is desperate to sign up to national dance competition Starwars when it comes to her school looking for local talent. But when her best friend also decides to sign up together with her arch enemy, Bea enters with her enemy's boyfriend.

Issue-led yet funny, the books tackle serious themes such as bullying, body image, friendships and teen romances.

As the mother of two daughters, Jenny has been keen to create girls who are strong in both character and body.

Her four main protagonists are all physically active, a hot topic after sports minister Helen Grant said in February that some sports were “unfeminine”, while it emerged that teenage girls are only half as active as teenage boys.

“In Flirty Dancing, Bea learns to jive and I have tried to portray the confidence that comes from doing well in something physical,” said Jenny.

“I really wanted the books to be funny and about real life because the big emphasis in teen books have been series such as The Hunger Games and the vampire stories.

“While comedy in adult fiction, such as Bridget Jones, is really big, I thought that younger readers don't get such a pleasurable experience in reading.”

Jenny completed the second novel in six months and it is due to be published in March. She is currently working on the third book and last week returned from a research trip to Sweden, where it will be set.

Many scenes in Flirty Dancing are set in Brighton, where Jenny and Ben met, married and lived for a while, and some are set on Eastbourne Pier, which was devastated by fire last week. Jenny, 38, has delved further back into her past to write the books in the first person.

“I found it incredibly easy to go back and think what it was like as a 14-year-old,” she said. “I can even remember how I felt at the school disco at the age of 13. I hope the books have an authentic teenage voice.”

Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLachlan, published by Bloomsbury, £6.99.

 

Jenny McLachlan will appear at the Big Summer Read festival at Churchill Square, Brighton, at 2.30pm on Tuesday August 19.

With a performance by jive dancers, she will read from Flirty Dancing and signing copies of the book afterwards.