Blind pensioner, 83, defies all odds to publish her first novel in Milton Keynes

Patricia Smith insists her work, called A Dangerous Inheritance, is "not an old lady book in the slightest".

She started writing the exciting adventure plot before she lost her sight almost overnight seven years ago due to a rare condition called temporal arteritis.

Volunteers from the MK Reader Service helped her proof read it and get it published, and Patricia has thanked them in a dedication at the front of the book.

The plot was inspired by an American GMC Safari. vehicle her husband Roy bought years ago.

"He removed two of the back seats and discovered a deliberate slit in the carpet which had been previously hidden. Knowing it had last been in Latvia for a year, he wondered whether anything had been hidden there - and I thought 'what if'..." she said.

'A Dangerous Inheritance' starts at the end of WW2 when a German soldier steals some artefacts from a plundered hoard in Greece and hides them, One of the artefacts is the Akbar Shah diamond, and the plot moves to modern day times and the attempts to find the diamond.

"We have travelled extensively across Europe and I had been particularly entranced by the ruined Byzantine city of Mistras set on a hillside near Sparta in Greece. I decided to incorporate this setting in a book, as it seemed to be the ideal place for stolen artefacts to be hidden," said Patricia, who writes under the name of Patsy Smith.

The book is available on Amazon here and is already getting good reviews.

"I'm really hoping people find it an exiting read," said Patricia, who worked as a typesetter for many years.

She spent much of her time writing before she lost her sight, and was also a talented pianist and artist.

"I'm totally blind now. I can't even tell night from day. It happened suddenly and it was really hard, but I am finding ways to adjust. I can't read music any more, for example, so I'm composing my own pieces now."

The MK Readers Service, which offers a free reading and writing service for visually impaired and disabled people, has been a godsend, said Patricia.

"I was running out of time at my age, but they helped me get the book published. I am very grateful."