WAITING for that phone call from a publisher is every writer's frustrating dream.

It's doubly hard when you're on holiday and there's no phone signal.

"We were up in Norfolk," Essex author Laurie Ellingham smiles, "and there was no signal whatsoever. I eventually got the call on the last day we were up there but I was so delighted when they told me about the deal."

To be precise a two-book deal with one of the largest publishers in the world, Harper Collins.

It wouldn't be too far from the truth to say Laurie is pretty much still pinching herself, despite the fact she signed the deal almost a year ago.

The first book, One Endless Summer, comes out in three weeks, and Laurie is a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

"I am nervous about it," she confesses. "It's getting real now, people are actually going to see it, and I'm told it's going to be sold in supermarkets as well, which is just incredible."

The story of three friends who have just three months to enjoy each other's company so take a trip around the world looks set to put the writer firmly on the literary map.

"It's an idea I had many years ago," she tells me. "Three friends who go round the world which is paid for by a television company because one of them is dying. But the idea of writing about friendship came out of the last book I wrote, How To Throw Your Life Away. I loved that aspect so much I knew straight away I wanted to explore it more."

As well as using the experience from her last book, Laurie also had the benefit of one of Harper Collins editors to help her.

"That made such a difference," she beams. "Victoria Oundjian was my editor and she was just so brilliant at getting me to focus on the relationship between the three friends, suggesting extra scenes and putting in ideas like old jokes the three would have shared in the past.

"Victoria was also instrumental in getting the publisher to extend the deal to a paperback version. Originally it was just a digital deal with the novel coming out as an E-Book but Victoria loved it so much it's not going to be a paperback."

Now living north of Colchester, Laurie was born in Rochford but grew up in Rayleigh going to Love Lane and FitzWimarc schools before studying at the Greensward Sixth Form in Hockley.

After dabbling with medicine and working in PR for the health care industry, Laurie first began writing when she was 23 but didn't publish her first book many years later after going on a course.

The self-released The Reluctant Celebrity came out in 2014 but it was so popular online it was eventually picked up by a London publisher. She went back to self publishing for her second novel How To Throw Your Life Away, which has in turn led to her book deal with Harper Collins.

With the book also coming out on Harper Collins 360 imprint in the US, One Endless Summer is out on April 20.

"I've already finished the second novel, about a girl who goes missing for 14 years," she tells me, "but I don't know when that will be out. I'm just thinking about this one at the moment and like every writer hoping people really like it."

For more information go online at www.laurie-ellingham.com