PAUL Magrs launched his new book in Whitby during this year's Goth Weekend, although none of the colourful characters gathered in the town for the festival could have been as bizarre or downright weird as those brought to life on the pages of Never The Bride.

The writer, who grew up in Newton Aycliffe, has fashioned a black comedy that defies labelling but is very dark, very funny and very original.

His heroine is Brenda, who runs a B&B in Whitby after a long - disturbingly long - and eventful life all over the world. The scars on her head and the fact that she takes two different shoe sizes should alert you that she's not like other women.

She is, shall we say, related to the Bride of Frankenstein. She and her husband were, literally, made for each other. To give away any more would be to spoil the many and varied surprises in store for readers.

"I've always wanted to write a book about Whitby because we'd been there quite a lot when I was a kid," says Magrs - pronounced Mars. "We'd been to places like Blackpool, but Whitby was spooky and stuck in your imagination. I knew about its literary history and discovered more and more, even that the Brontes had been there."

I don't know how the people of Whitby will react to Never The Bride, but the book won't cause as much fuss as Magrs' children's book, Strange Boy, did five years ago. There were calls for this autobiographical story to be banned from schools because it features a relationship between ten-year-old protagonist David and an older boy from down the road.

Never The Bride had its beginnings in a short story about Brenda on Radio 4. The novel grew from there with Magrs seeing it as "a cosy mystery where you get to know everybody and everybody has a spooky back story, as people do".

His own back story is growing up in Newton Aycliffe, where he attended Woodham School, and becoming a lecturer in creative writing. He's written a number of Doctor Who novels and now lectures part-time at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Research for Never The Bride took him back to Whitby to soak up the atmosphere as well as reading about the old myths and legends of the place.

He calls the book a "mystery gothic horror", saying that he loves that movement from genre to genre. "You get people who wouldn't normally read mystery or horror or science fiction suddenly involved, usually women of a certain age. I think it's because they latch on to the character of Brenda."

A sequel is in the works in which Brenda and her sidekick, Effie, enjoy further adventures and more about Brenda's previous life is revealed.

Magrs began his literary career writing about growing up in County Durham. Now he's more into the idea of mystery and whodunit with stories about "everyday people with extraordinary things in their past". Radio 7 is planning a series on the book next year and a TV series surely can't be far behind.

He's now teaching part-time to allow him more time for writing. "I've written as long as I can remember. I was given encouragement by lots of good teachers at Woodhall. My mam always said it was a good thing, and writing was a bit of an escape," he says.

"I don't know when that moment kicked in about being a writer. I do remember being off school when I was about ten and in the afternoon writing my Doctor Who novel."

He was first published at 24, recalling that getting paid for writing was fantastic. He sold a story to the British Council's anthology of new writing that led to various publishers showing interest in his first novel.

"It's been difficult since because I don't write the most commercial or dumbed down things," says Magrs. "When you don't come from somewhere posh and haven't gone to Oxford or Cambridge, you're an outsider. But outside is good - like Doctor Who - you have to look from the outside in."

The Time Lord has played a big part in his career. He was a fan long before the current revival when it wasn't cool or fashionable to like him.

Coincidentally, another Doctor Who fan and novel writer, The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss also went to Woodhall, where he was two years above Magrs and in the same drama group.

"Now everyone is doing Doctor Who. Before you'd do a literary function and people would ask, 'why are young doing Doctor Who?'. Now everyone likes him. I did my first one in 1998," he says.

He has another novel, Sick Buildings, being published in September to tie in with the current Doctor Who series.

He's written about several of the doctors in his novels and also in the full-cast audio adventures he's written. Some of those feature Paul McGann as the doctor. He's one of Magrs favourites in the part, although he's always loved Tom Baker.

He's also written a series of novels for teenagers and children. His next, Twin Freaks, is about two sisters who pretend to be conjoined twins in order to win a talent show.

He finds his teaching helps his writing. "It puts you among people, writing peers as much a students," he says. "You can learn as much from students as they do from you."

Never The Bride (Headline, £7.99)