AN Ickenham teacher is celebrating the publication of her second novel.

Jennifer Rothwell, the new head of English at Douay Martyrs School, has written A Curse of Smoke and Flame, the second in her Firelighters trilogy.

It follows A Spark of Fire, and this summer she will be writing the final story.

The first two are available to buy on Kindle and in paperback through Amazon or at waterstones.co.uk

After leaving university, Jennifer initially worked in journalism and media sales but re-trained to become a teacher.

She said: “I have always written stories and treated it more as a hobby, though I harboured dreams of one day publishing a novel.

“Working with young people as a secondary school teacher, I discovered a love of young adult books and began plotting out a fantasy story which I called The Firelighters.”

At the start of 2018, husband Dean was posted to RAF Northolt and they moved from York to West Ruislip with their son, Sebastian.

In A Curse of Smoke and Flame, Felix Spark is the Firelighter, the guardian of the Flame of Magic and she’s making the lives of magicians and commoners better. Or at least she’s trying to.

Rules and laws are hard to navigate and change doesn’t happen overnight, especially in the Magistry of London.

Linus Godspell has found solace in the Skimmer, a sewer ship sailing through the waters of Underlondon. Yet he knows things: secrets about secrets, which endanger the lives of magicians and commoners alike.