AS a sufferer of dyslexia, the idea of writing for a living “was torture” to Jean Fullerton, which makes it even more remarkable that here she sits before me, the winner of the Harry Bowling Prize for her debut novel No Cure For Love, discussing her second tome A Glimpse at Happiness, released this week.

“I loved reading,” the Stepney-born author tells me, “but I would never have considered writing for a living or studying English at university, it would have been a nightmare.”

Choosing instead to become a police officer and later a nurse, Jean, 55, came to writing some nine years ago while on a stress-management course as an NHS manager. Advised to pick up a hobby, Jean was reminded of the words she would utter to her children after finishing a book, “I could have done that,” and decided to finally put figurative pen to paper “I literally opened my laptop and started writing this medieval rompy thing and suddenly all this story started to pour out of my head,” the Stratford resident recalls. “Towards the end of that one, I already had another story in my head.”

After spending three years writing purely for the eyes of friends and family, Jean’s husband convinced her to take her hobby to the next step, and in 2003 she joined the Romantic Novelist Association, where she received invaluable criticism from published authors.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know about structure and composition, and I couldn’t spell, but I was told I was a natural storyteller.”

After a folder of rejection letters and nine unpublished manuscripts, the mother-of-three got an “unbelievable” lucky break when No Cure For Love won the Harry Bowling Prize for an unpublished author in 2006, which in turn secured her an agent and a publishing deal with Orion.

As with the books before, No Cure For Love, which was finally published in 2008, fits in the historic romance genre, being set during the Victorian era in Jean’s stomping ground of the East End.

“I like the idea of what happened before us, and this was a very exciting time. Railways were just starting, people were moving around the globe, the empire was growing and the East London docks were the entrance to the whole world.”

Of course, growing up in the area adds to the authenticity of the tome, as Jean, who now teaches nursing, explains: “the house that Ellen lives in in No Cure For Love, is my old house. I know these streets.”

Moving the story on from 1832 to 1844, A Glimpse at Happiness concerns Josie, Ellen’s daughter, who returns to London after being educated in America to discover her childhood sweetheart belongs to another.

“It isn’t just a romance,” Jean insists, “but a fast paced adventure story that takes the reader into the sight, sounds and smells of 1840s east London.”

A Glimpse at Happiness if out now. For more information visit www.jeanfullerton.com