The Steele Diaries is the follow-up to her first offering, Out of the Silence, which won the Ned Kelly Award for best first crime novel.

That novel was written as a major component for her PhD in creative writing from Deakin University.

The Steele Diaries is the story of Zelda Steele and the diaries she is rumoured to have kept as a young woman.

Zelda is adopted by her parents’ patrons as a baby, and great things are expected of her before her untimely death at just 27.

Years later Zelda’s daughter Ruth returns to her childhood home to find the rumoured diaries, and what she finds takes her on a journey into her past.

The book has received glowing reviews from a number of sources, including the Sydney Morning Herald.

“If James aspires to be our national novelist, she is well on her way,” the reviewer wrote.

Ms James began writing short stories in 1992, most of which were published in journals and anthologies.

She said her second novel took considerably less than her first,

“It’s like asking how long is a piece of string. The first one took a long time, maybe five years, and this one took just over two,” she said.

“When you add in all the stuff after publishing, it was probably about two and a half.”

Ms James said one of the main differences between the two books was the research involved in them.

“There was a lot of research involved in the first one, and in this one there wasn’t as much,” she said.

“I did a lot of research into art and stuff, which was sort of historical, but not as detailed as the first one.”

The book touches on the stories of a number of real-life art luminaries.

“I started off being interested in the story of Joy Hester and Albert Tucker,” Ms James said.

“The book also involves a bit of Sylvia Plath and Vanessa Bell, all different artists whose relationships with their children have been quite interesting.”