Belle, who also writes contemporary fiction as Alice Marlow, always wanted to be an author. As a child the books she read were adventure stories like "Treasure Island," "Swallows and Amazons," and the novels of John Buchan and CS Forester. She wrote her first book at the age of twelve and having visited the site of a lovely Elizabethan manor house called Rushbrooke and observing the bare, moated island which was all that was left, she wanted to bring Rushbrooke back and chose to do so in print. Over the next few years 'The Epic', as it became known, grew and grew. Belle drew up a huge family tree and a plan of the house very like Rushbrooke. Married and a teacher of a class of six-year-olds, she wrote in longhand and, while publishers made encouraging noises, no one was prepared to risk publishing a large book by an unknown author. Eventually the agent Vivienne Schuster was wonderfully enthusiastic about it and found a publisher. "The Moon in the Water" and its two sequels were published in the UK and the USA with considerable success. Belle gave up teaching in 1985 to spend more time researching and writing. She plans to write a book about Alfred the Great if she can fit it in between looking after the children, dogs, cats and husband.