AFTER the best part of 20 years to write, author Tanya Davies has just published her second novel, “Then Eve”.

“I got stuck at times definitely, and I put ‘Then Eve’ away a couple of times,” she says.

“At one period I put it away for such a long time I thought I was never going to finish it or publish it. I just thought I wasn’t really happy with it, I didn’t feel like I’d done a good job with it.

“Eventually, I came back to it and got back into it, and then I got really excited about it.”

“Then Eve” is about 16-year-old Brigit, who is living in Glastonbury in the UK – the mythical setting of Avalon, where King Arthur is said to be buried – where she learns how to lift the mists of time and is able to time travel to Avalon.

“She discovers that she is descended from priestesses and she’s next in line,” says Tanya.

“She has mixed feelings about it because it all sounds very exciting and glamorous, but at the same time she knows she is supposed to be going to school and her mum will be on her case.

“She is also told she is fated to marry the King of the Summer Country to form an alliance between the old pagan ways and the Christian ways that are starting to take over.”

Tanya says there are subtle themes within “Then Eve” with an especially important meaning to her.

“Themes of self discovery and female empowerment are important because, despite the fact we’re in the 21st century, we know that things are still not equal for women,” she says.

“I think we’re all still fighting, whether we’re 16 or 50, it takes more work to make ourselves heard and to feel confident to speak up.”

Previously an environmental writer and now working for Parks Australia, Tanya’s passion for nature also shines through in her work.

In her award-winning first book, “Sarah’s Song”, there are mentions of vegetarianism and living lightly on the land.

“In ‘Then Eve’ it’s very much about being connected to the earth and to nature, and the whole spirituality of celebrating trees and flowers, and buds and the acorns, so it is interspersed with nature and the changing seasons and the landscapes. That is one of the things I really enjoyed writing.”

Keeping with the nature theme, part of Tanya’s writing routine includes leaving her house in Coombs to frequent the National Botanic Gardens.

“That’s my favourite place to write, I feel like I half live there,” she says, but it’s not always practical.

“Otherwise, I think of it as Generation X but people these days would probably say it’s very Millennial. I can write with the TV on, I can have music on, there can be the rest of the family around. My mum is currently sleeping in the office so I can plonk myself down in a chair and just jump in.”

One of her favourite parts about “Then Eve” was escaping into that world.

“When the book is out it means I can’t revisit it and can’t go back there any more, so I understand that feeling of missing my character. I used to just love saying I was going to Avalon, to go and cast spells and be a high priestess and be magical,” she says.

“I’ve definitely got ideas for what would happen in a sequel, but it’s just getting the time to do it.

“I was telling my daughter some of the ideas the other day and she was telling me which ones she loved. I figured that’s a promising start; we’ll see what the future holds.”

But, Tanya says, she has almost finished the first proper draft of her next book.

“It’s not young-adult fantasy, it’s more speculative fiction,” she says.

“It’s set roughly in the late 2030s in a commercial surrogacy clinic, so it’s about women who, for whatever reason, find themselves in a situation where they make the choice to use their body to earn money to feed their families and the moral conversations that arise around that,” she says.

“It’s a bit different from what I’ve done before, I’m just enjoying experimenting and discovering myself as a writer.”

“Then Eve” is available at… tanyadavieswrites.com