AN author stuck thousands of miles away from her husband is also missing out on the UK launch of her latest book.

Alison Booth splits her time between Wivenhoe and Australia and was due to fly back to the UK to promote her fifth book The Philosopher’s Daughter.

But all flights have been cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis meaning launch parties have been called off.

She is also stuck thousands of miles from husband Tim Hatton, an economics professor at Essex University.

Ms Booth also used to lecture on the same subject at the Wivenhoe campus but now works at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“It is most frustrating – I keep thinking, if only I’d gone a few weeks earlier before my travel approval was withdrawn and my Qantas flight grounded,” she said.

“Tim and I keep in touch with conversations twice a day on Skype.

“There’s currently 11 hours time difference so we talk 8am my time and 7pm my time which is 9pm and 8am for him.

“It works quite well because we can see each other.

“We also send photos so I can see spring arriving in our Wivenhoe garden and he can see autumn starting here.

“We are both in lockdown in our respective places.”

“I’m disappointed to be missing the launch. I’d been so looking forward to this and to catching up with old friends in Wivenhoe, Colchester and London at the book launch, which would have been a wonderful excuse for a party.

“But we have to beat this virus.”

The established author has used Wivenhoe’s river walks as an inspiration for scenes in a previous novel.

Her latest work, which is available at bookshops including Waterstones, tells the story of two very different sisters who voyage to the outback in the 1890s and involved painstaking research of the time period.

“In the second half of the 19th century, my ancestors sailed from England and Scotland to the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria,” Alison said.

“It has always stuck me how brave they were, and I grew up fascinated by the thought Australia once comprised such small colonies teetering on the edge of a vast continent. In this novel I wanted to travel back in time to view it.”