A woman of many talents - and quite a few names.

Byline: JANE GALLAGHER

TO her readers, she is known as Zoe Barnes; to her publishers, she's Sue Dyson; to her singing fans, she's Sue Dyson-Morgan.

And to her old friends from Wirral Grammar School for Girls in Bebington, she's Sue Lightfoot.

So who is she? Novelist, singer, translator and former secretary of the year, Sue, or Zoe as she prefers, is a woman of many talents as well as names.

But the confusion makes her very ``Zoe''. ``I have written more than 40 books. But when I started to write humorous novels, I decided to use the name Zoe Barnes because Zoe meant ``life'' and the books are very lively,'' adds the 45-yearold writer, who now lives in Cheltenham.

``Zoe's characters have very confusing lives with a lot of things going wrong yet they always see the funny side, which is very like me.''

As plain Sue Lightfoot, Zoe attended Wirral Grammar School, where she was head girl.

``After school, I went to Cambridge but I wasn't really on the course I wanted to be. I was also having problems with my back and needed an operation, so I studied for my degree in French and English at Chester College.''

`` From the age of five I had always wanted to be a writer but knew I had to get a proper job first.''

After graduating, Zoe, started to get work as a translator turning French novels into English.

Then she took a secretarial course, discovered typing talents and became secretary of the year.

``It opened doors and I was asked to write a book called Bluff Your Way To The Top As A Secretary. I always wanted to see my name in print.''

Although her writing career was taking off, Zoe still needed to pay the bills and between books took temping work.

``I would write anything from greetings card captions to articles in Cat's World magazine. I was also doing more French novels and decided to have a go at fiction.

``My mother had grown up on the Isle of Man and inspired me to write a series of family war sagas set on the island. But it wasn't me.

``So I chatted to my publisher about writing in a new style of lively books with a comic twist and that's when Zoe Barnes was born.''

Zoe's books started to appear when ``chick lit'' was becoming the book world's hottest genre.

Titles like Bumps, Hitched and Ex-Appeal sold 100,000 copies a book.

``My attitude to life is very much like Zoe's characters - when something knocks you down, pick yourself up and get on with it.''

And Zoe's painful back reinforces this. ``I have had a series of operations which haven't cured the problem but left me with a permanent headache. I could sit and mope, but generally I get on with it.''

The writing of Zoe's latest book, Love Bug, about a dating agency, coincided with her wedding to Simon.

``It was a lovely romantic ceremony in the north of Scotland. We got married at midnight in a summer house during a candlelit ceremony, it was fantastic.''

So what about the confusing names? ``A brief marriage changed me from Lightfoot to Dyson and, as I started writing, I kept the name. ``When Simon met me, he thought I was called Zoe and has stuck with that. I also sing in clubs and was known as Sue Dyson, but wanted to add Simon's name and came up with Sue DysonMorgan.''

.Love Bug by Zoe Barnes costs pounds 5.99 and is published by Piatkus.