THE feeling of flying across the world to a home you've never visited and a family you've only met through a screen has been captured in a new series of books by a Dunfermline author.

Donna Davidson grew up on the Isle of Skye with her two brothers, Paul, who still lives in Portree, and Grant, who emigrated to Australia.

She was inspired by her own family and the experiences of her nieces and nephew, who have family all across the globe.

Donna told the Press: "The books are about a family living in Scotland and Australia and are about a little girl, my niece basically, who is getting nervous about her trip to Scotland.

"The first book is about the comparisons between life on the farm in Australia and life on Skye.

"The second book is about her journey over and then the third book is her arrived in Skye.

"There's a guide in it which compares gumboots and wellies and that sort of stuff."

Allie Skye was created as a mixture of Donna's two oldest nieces - Chloe Skye and Allie - who live in New South Wales with their sister Holly and brother Angus.

"We've not really seen any books where the theme is extended family being separated on other sides of the world and how you maintain that relationship," the author explained.

"The kids love them, they've been taking them into school in Australia and their teachers have been reading them.

"They're looking to get it in the local library over there and the local shop wants to sell them and things like that."

Donna continued: "In the community where my brother lives there are a lot of expat Scottish people so the story will resonate a lot with a number of different families over there.

"The characters in the book as well who are based on my brother's in-laws, are first generation Australian so there's also references to the fact the grandparents are Italian and have come from another part of the world as well.

"The hope for future books is that they will be in different locations and it will be Allie Skye going to London, Allie Skye going to Italy, all these different things.

Donna wrote the first book during a two-day writing course with Penguin Books, with the next two following shortly after.

She hopes the series will lay a foundation for further releases and that fans will get involved with the story.

Her website, launching on International Children's Book Day, April 2, will offer downloads such as colouring in, fortune tellers, and instructions on how to draw Allie Skye yourself.

The series was illustrated by Amy Scott, an artist also living in Dunfermline.

"I got in contact with Amy because I put an advert on Reddit and posted it in social media groups," Donna said.

"Someone said I should check her out, I did and what she mostly did was portraiture work of animals but it turned out that her passion is illustration and animation.

"When she came back with her example work it was amazing and straight away I thought that's definitely the one."

The Allie Skye series is currently available to purchase via Amazon and it is hoped to be available in book stores soon.

You could be in with a chance of winning copies of all three books by downloading and colouring in one of the Allie Skye illustrations from the Allie Skye website and emailing your entry to enquiries@allieskye.com.

More of Amy's illustrations can be found on her website.