The bestselling author draws inspiration from her home city’s rich past for her novels.

Sunderland author Glenda Young continues to keep the city's rich heritage and history alive as the title of her next novel is announced.

Glenda Young is drawing inspiration from the city's rich glassmaking past | Submitted

placeholder image — Glenda Young is drawing inspiration from the city's rich glassmaking past | Submitted

The Glassmaker's Girl will be set in the early 1900s in a Sunderland glass factory.

Glenda's novels shine a light on women's work in the city. The Paper Mill Girl was set in Hendon paper mill. It is Glenda's bestselling book to date and earned a commendation from the British Association of Paper Historians for the accuracy of the research.

Glenda has also written about Sunderland's mining heritage in The Miner's Lass; women market traders in Belle of the Back Streets and women working in farming communities in The Sixpenny Orphan.

Her Toffee Factory Girls trilogy was inspired by Horner's toffee factory and Dainty Dinah toffee of Chester-le-Street.

Next year her new novel The Bakery Girl is published by Headline. Set in an Edwardian bakery in Sunderland, the book will be the fictional birth of Sunderland's iconic pink slice. Glenda said: "The research for this book was the best I've ever done. I met some wonderful people from baking dynasties in Sunderland and I've never eaten so much fantastic cake!"

Mullers Swiss Bakers of Villette Road even baked a special batch of pink slice to send to London for the photoshoot of the book.

And now Glenda begins research for The Glassmaker's Girl. She appeals to anyone with information and pictures of women working in the glass industry in Sunderland in the early 1900s to get in touch with her through her website at glendayoungbooks.com.

Glenda says: "I feel very honoured and privileged to bring Sunderland's history and heritage alive and to champion Sunderland's past in the stories that I write."