IT'S maybe not what the Cornish Tourist Board wanted to hear but there's werewolves and vampires on the loose down on that rugged coastline.

Catherine Green's the one to blame. Her debut novel – the British answer to Stephanie Meyer's U.S.-based best-selling Twilight series of vampire novels – has just been published.

And just in the nick of time – it's not easy putting the finishing touches to a tale of love amid the supernatural when you've just had a baby.

Love Hurts is the tome, a story alive only in the 29-year-old's head for several years until pushed to deliver a hard copy by sister Emily. "She made me do it – it had been a bit half-hearted until then but she set me a timetable for chapters – she was really strict actually".

Catherine's more than glad her tough sibling taskmaster set the deadline.

The book's already building a steady following having found a gap in the market for a vampire series set in surely the most atmospheric of settings – the storm-lashed English coast, the mist-laden moorland.

It's got all the necessary ingredients for a tasty tale.

"I'd written stories for anthologies before," explains Catherine, from Cheadle, "but the publisher wanted to know what else I had in my head, what else I was capable of."

That vote of confidence got her thinking. Her mind turned to family holidays in the Cornish fishing resort of Looe.

The more she thought about it, the more she realised she'd happened across the perfect setting for her "alternative love story".

"At first I was thinking of setting it in a city," she says, "but the only cities I really know are Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it being somewhere remote and isolated on the coast."

Catherine's long had an interest in ghoulish entities. "I've always been fascinated by ghosts," she says. "My dad used to call me weird.

"I used to read ghost stories, but I wouldn't really get spooked. Then I got into all the vampire films and novels and then that expanded into werewolves. I liked the idea that there was something else out there – something beyond all that we know is possible."

Books and films soon developed into full-on paranormal investigations. She's spent spooky nights in the ruins of Alton Towers, similarly in the castle at Dudley Zoo. Her most memorable experience came at Belgrave Hall, Leicester, where she saw the fabled 'white mist apparition', the shape of a person clouded in mist – the classic ghost image. "I couldn't believe it, but there it was in front of me and two other people and they saw it too." Did she scream? Turn tail and run? "No, we ran after it. We were trying to capture it on film – but sadly we didn't."

If that wasn't enough, Catherine also does psychic readings, mainly for friends, but occasionally for others by email. "I always thought you needed to do it face to face," she says, "but I tried practising on people I know with emails and it actually worked really well.

"It depends where they are in life but people may want to make a connection with a relative who's passed away, or maybe want to know something to do with their relationship."

She also designs a range of bead jewellery and attends mind, body and soul events where people enjoy palmistry, crystal ball readings, reiki, mediums, and holistic therapies. Catherine's hobby is some way removed from that of husband Daniel, guitarist for rock band The Jyst who regularly perform at venues around North Staffordshire.

Taking a film and media studies degree at Lampeter University, Catherine delivered a dissertation in vampires in popular culture.

It helps explain the angle she has on a legend that has scared people witless for hundreds of years. "Vampires represent human perceptions of reality at different times in history," she says.

"Dracula, for instance, represented a fear of foreigners."

With a book signing set for mid-September, Catherine, currently on maternity leave from her role as a part-time sales advisor at Mothercare in Crewe, will soon come face to face with her readers.

"I imagine my audience to be the same as those who read the Twilight novels," she says, "except they're looking for something UK-based instead of American."

Whatever, finding herself signing copies in Waterstone's will be quite a leap for a woman still young enough to readily recall how much she enjoyed creative writing at school. She's come a long way since then. Seven-month-old daughter Elliot may not be old enough to appreciate it – her early years reading matter may be a little more gentle – but she's got a mum with a talent. A sequel to her novel is already planned.

Love Hurts – the perfect choice for a Cornish holiday? Hmm, depends how much you like a midsummer spine shiver.

Catherine will be signing copies of Love Hurts at Waterstone's, Crewe, on Saturday, September 17, from 11am-3pm.