Valerie Thornhill, an art historian from East Yorkshire, tells ROBERT BEAUMONT why she is embarking on a new career as a novelist.

VALERIE Thornhill is one of the most respected contemporary British art historians. An expert on the Renaissance, and on Venice in particular, she has a formidable reputation in this competitive and intellectual field.

Having studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne, Valerie has taught art history at Cambridge, Hull and York universities in England and the University of Berkeley in California.

Now based in Beverley, East Yorkshire, she lectures widely on art history in the United States, Italy and Japan and is the founder and co-director of VISTA, the East Yorkshire centre for the visual arts and literature.

But, much as she loves the history of art, Valerie has always dreamed of being a novelist. Not any old novelist, she hastens to say, and certainly not some purveyor of hackneyed romantic fiction. No, she has always dreamed of being a novelist who makes her readers sit up and think, feel and imagine.

Her first novel, The Tycoon's Tale, which is subtitled A Christmas Carol For The Millennium, does just that. It is a beautifully-written, sharply-observed story of a latter-day Scrooge, who gains happiness and salvation by finally rejecting materialism in favour of more spiritual, lasting values. But it's a long, hard and thought-provoking journey, with many pitfalls on the way.

Valerie's Scrooge is Jonathan Tytheson, a multi-millionaire who has made his money in a number of morally (if not legally) questionable deals across the world. A succession of events forces Jonathan to question both his role as an international financier and the continual neglect of his family. Ultimately the penny drops, leading to a denouement worthy of Dickens himself.

There are interesting similarities between Jonathan Tytheson and Robert Maxwell and, if one had an optimistic view of human nature, one might have envisaged Maxwell ultimately seeing the light and turning into a Tytheson had he not taken a tumble overboard on his yacht. There are similarities, too, between The Tycoon's Tale and Jeffrey Archer's The Fourth Estate, though Valerie Thornhill is a far better writer than Archer - and a sharper observer and drawer of her characters.

Valerie said: "I have thoroughly enjoyed the transition from art historian to novelist. I've been especially delighted by the kind words The Tycoon's Tale has attracted. In many ways they have meant more to me than any of the praise that has come my way in the world of history of art."

The Tycoon's Tale is not Valerie's first work of fiction, although it is her first novel. In 1998 she wrote The Children Of Kumbhalgarh, a collection of well-crafted short stories which reflected both her experience of travel and her inquiring mind.

This book received widespread praise for its diverse subject matter and the sensitivity of the writing. Crucially, it gave Valerie the confidence to write The Tycoon's Tale.

The Children Of Kumbhalgarh has a resonance for those of us who love Yorkshire, despite its foreign-sounding title. Three of the stories are set in the county, including one in which a Leeds hairdresser has a memorable experience with Alan Bennett and another which takes place on the North York Moors.

So what does the future hold for Valerie Thornhill?

"Well, I've got two longer works of fiction in the pipeline. I am hoping that one, Etruscan Voices, will be published this summer.

"This full-length novel is a post-war social history of the inhabitants of an Italian valley from the impoverished peasants at the end of the Second World War to the more consumer-orientated Italians of today. It is a celebration of the Italian landscape and of the Italian way of life," she said.

Meanwhile, the Tycoon's Tale is a timely reflection on how worldly goods can often flatter to deceive and how the pursuit of material gain can have disastrous consequences.

Copies of The Tycoon's Tale (£5) and The Children Of Kumbhalgarh (£6), which are published by Highgate Publications of Beverley, can be obtained from every good bookshop or directly from Highgate Publications, 4 Newbiggin, Lairgate, Beverley.