A publisher has paid tribute to a children's author who battled breast cancer to write her latest novels - one of which comes out next month.

Siobhan Dowd, who lived in West Oxford, died at Sobell House Hospice, at the Churchill Hospital, in Headington, in August, aged 47.

The Oxford University graduate was gaining a reputation as one of the most promising children's writers of her generation.

Her third novel, Bog Child, about a boy caught up in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, will be published in February.

Ms Dowd's publisher, David Fickling, based in Beaumont Street, said: "She kept her sickness very quiet and even though I knew she was ill, I somehow managed to forget it. So when she died it came as a terrible shock.

"She was a person of immense humanity, warmth and ability, already in the full measure of her talent. She made words sing for her.

"She had been waiting all her life to write as she was now writing.

"We are so lucky to have four brilliant books but we cannot help thinking that is not enough."

Her fourth novel, Solace of the Road, is due out in 2009.

Her first book, A Swift Pure Cry, won an award for the most promising novel by a first-time writer of a book for young people.

She also worked for the writers' association, International PEN, and was deputy commissioner for children's rights in Oxfordshire.

She was also nominated as one of Waterstone's top 25 authors of the future on its 25th anniversary.