WHEN you reach the age of 80, most people are probably thinking of slowing down the pace of their life, if they haven t already done so. But not Mary Rensten. For the journalist and dramatist from Cuffley has just seen her first novel published. She will

WHEN you reach the age of 80, most people are probably thinking of slowing down the pace of their life, if they haven't already done so.

But not Mary Rensten.

For the journalist and dramatist from Cuffley has just seen her first novel published.

She will launch Too Strong a Light at an event at a Hoddesdon bookstore next weekend.

Mrs Rensten, of Warwick Avenue, told the WHT her decision to write her first book was based on skills she had built up over the years.

She said: "Writing a novel is a combination of being a journalist and a dramatist, you have the writing in journalism and the drama in being a dramatist, so you put the two together."

The gripping yarn, which has already won praise from industry moguls is described as "a compelling story of the unearthing of a 50-year-old secret".

Starting in Enfield and Hertford, the novel moves swiftly to Malta in 1995, with flashbacks to World War Two, as heroine, Jane Thornfield, uncovers the dramatic and startling secret of her family's connection with the war-torn island.

Speaking about what inspired the story, Mrs Rensten said: "I love Malta and have been five times, I was walking around a military cemetery in Malta and began to get the idea.

"I met Maltese people there and they invited me into there homes and I got the idea of what a Maltese home is like."

And Mrs Rensten doesn't intend to stop here, either. She is currently researching her second novel which is set "all over Hertfordshire" and will centre around events in 1712.

Too Strong a Light, published by Scriptoria in association with the SWWJ, will be launched at Books@Hoddesdon, in the High Street, at 11am next Saturday, October 10.

It costs �7.99.