WITH sales heading towards 70 million, South Cheshire author Penny Halsall is leaving writers like The Da Vinci Code's Dan Brown in her wake.

Romance is the key to her success as she works at the third story in a sequence of books about women's lives during the Second World War.

The 59-year-old, who writes as Annie Groves, her mother's maiden name, moved to Nantwich three years ago.

Making a fresh start after the death of her husband, she chose to live in Nantwich through her long-held love of the town, which has provided the inspiration for a lot of her work, including her current project.

She explains: 'I once read about a plane crash in Nantwich many years back and it provided the inspiration for me to include a fictional crash in my latest book.

'There is also mention of Nantwich in my most recent novel called Some Sunny Day about Land Girls training at Reaseheath. I think its fun to mention where you live in stories and I always look to get Nantwich in in some form.'

It isn't the first time the town has inspired Penny. Before she moved to the area she wrote books about the Crighton family - the maiden name of her late mother-in-law - who lived in a town called Hazlewich.

But her stories might never have been told. She says: 'I was born in a nursing home in Preston before the NHS started.

'Out of 24 babies born at the same time as me, only four survived after a very bad outbreak of gastroenteritis in the North West.

'I don't know how I survived. Maybe I was strong or lucky or whatever.'

Tragedy is as much a staple of romantic stories as love and Penny has experienced both. Her husband, accountant Steve Halsall died four years ago of oral cancer.

'He was a lovely person but a heavy drinker and smoker. He was a very clever man who encouraged me to write, but these things happen.'

She writes four novels a year and recently moved from Aston to a three-story, mock-Tudor house at Stapeley shared with her 'fluffy' Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh.

The novel currently on the shelves is Goodnight Sweetheart, which is the first in the wartime series of books, released this summer under the Annie Groves tag.

Admirers of the romantic fiction of Mills and Boon, will know her as Penny Jordan. In the past 30 years she has written 165 books and sold 67 million copies of them, 57 million more books than Dan Brown has sold worldwide, with inviting titles such as The Sheikh's Virgin Bride, Bedding His Virgin Mistress, Prince of the Desert, Expecting the Playboy's Heir and The Italian Duke's Wife.