Sarah Ferguson has secured a second book deal with Mills & Boon, only days after her debut romance novel with the same publisher was launched.

Her Heart For A Compass, written by the Duchess of York and based partly on the story of her ancestor Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott, got generally unfavorable reviews after it was released on Tuesday.

Critics have called the debut “boring” with many remarking on the absence of sex in the tale, characterizing it as “at the PG end” of Mills & Boon.

The Duke of York’s ex-wife stated on Radio 4’s Front Row: “People try to put Fergie into a box, or Sarah or the Duchess into a box, saying ‘look at her, why is she doing this, why is she doing that?’

“We all have self-doubt. But it was really exciting to grow together in friendship and collaboration and we’re both very unified together in this book Her Heart For A Compass. So much so, we’ve signed our next book deal.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, according to Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie’s mother, provided her with the chance to write the book.

‘The pandemic also tapped me on the shoulder and said are you going to waste your life and never do what you want to do?’ she told the show’s presenter Nick Ahad.

‘Are you going to be in the front line helping people, nurses, NHS workers? I believe Lady Margaret would have done that, she would have risen to the challenge.’

She added: “I wondered whether it’s time to give me my own voice, and I wonder if Lady Margaret is helping me do that? I think she is.”

The Duchess remarked on the parallels she saw between the main woman in the novel and herself, such as her interaction with the press and finding independence in America.

‘I believe that any good storyteller includes journeys that parallel their own life,’ she said. ‘It’s really a total work of fiction. On the other hand, it’s rather like Who Do You Think You Are?, the TV show. Telling my ancestry of my grandmothers, my maternal and paternal grandparents.’

Sarah has dedicated her debut novel to “my beautiful girls, who have all the strength and courage of Lady Margaret, and so much more, and who have not waited until they are 61 years old to follow their hearts and to live life on their own terms”.

She opened out about the influence of newspaper headlines on her mental health, saying: “When you have had lines that say ‘82% would rather sleep with a goat than Fergie’ it’s very demoralising.

‘Also, what about the Duchess of Pork? That was a good one. It took me 10 years of real mental problems to get over the fact he thought I was fat.’

The duchess’s personal relationship with the press is also mirrored in the 500-page tome, as Lady Margaret, who is expelled from polite society after fleeing an arranged marriage, becomes the darling and then the target of the Victorian-era newspaper.