A high-flying insurance broker left her job to become a full-time writer after winning her first book prize.

Jane Davis, 41, of Carshalton, left her position as deputy managing director of Branch Insurance Brokers to dedicate her time to writing after her novel Half-truths and White Lies won the Daily Mail First Novel award.

Mrs Davis said: “I have just given up my full time job to be a writer.

“It took me a year to write this one and it was finished in January last year.

“It’s the story of a girl who discovers that her parents were not her real parents after they died. She then starts looking for her natural parents.”

The writer entered the competition, which had Chocolat author Joanne Harris among its judges, because of the promise of having her whole manuscript read.

She said: “My real incentive for entering was not the thought of winning, it was the promise that all manuscripts would be read in their entirety.

"All unpublished writers struggle to find professionals who are prepared to read their work.”

Mrs Davis, who counts John Irving, Thomas Hardy, Louis de Bernieres, Joanne Harris and E Annie Proulx among her favourite writers, has been a writer for six years and Half-truths and White Lies is her second book.

Her first novel, which she thinks is too personal “to ever see the light of day”, took four years to complete.

Mrs Davis’ award-winning Half-truths and White Lies has just been published and she is now busy promoting it.

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