Hephzibah felt there weren’t enough books with lead characters from minority backgrounds, and got the idea to write her own book from her mum.
Her mum told her “instead of complaining, I should make a change”.
Luckily, she had always loved to write, scribbling ideas in notebooks, so she had a starting point for her first book.
Hephzibah added: “I decided that the [lead] should be a black girl, just to show others that anyone can be the main character, and I decided to name her Hephzibah because it’s not a very common name.”