Ross Raisin is like a lottery winner who insists the windfall won't change their life.

The writer, who grew up in Silsden Moor, near Ilkley, spent three years slaving over his debut novel, but having successfully bypassed the usual pile of rejection letters, he secured a two-book deal worth a rumoured £200,000 and in the last few months has appeared on pretty much every "one-to-watch" list.

With the publishing world falling over themselves to heap praise on God's Own Country, Raisin, who has spent the last few years working four days a week at the London restaurant Smiths of Smithfield, appears oblivious to the storm he has created. "I only work as a waiter two days a week now, but I can't see me leaving," he says, looking genuinely puzzled at the suggestion he would want to give it up. "It's much more fun working there than sitting on your own writing. I enjoy it and why would I want to stop doing something I enjoy?"

Ross, who moved to London to go to university, is back in Yorkshire to meet booksellers ahead of the novel's launch next month and he admits that self-promotion isn't something that comes naturally. Having already agreed to appear at literary festivals in Edinburgh, Hay on Wye and later in the year, Ilkley, he also knows that he needs to get used to the attention.

"It feels a bit surreal talking about yourself to people who don't know you," says the 28-year-old former Bradford Grammar School pupil. "I understand there's an obligation to go out and raise the profile of the book and despite myself, I am quite enjoying it. The one thing I have noticed is that when I talk about the whole process of writing, I often make it sound like the worst thing in the world. Of course it's not, but I think I did allow myself to get consumed by it.

"I get quite obsessed by making sure I do 1,000 words a day. I am trying to release myself from the self-imposed stranglehold, but it's tricky."

Having decided he wanted to write a book, Raisin enrolled on a creative writing course at Goldsmith's College, but he says it was only after he left that he
had the idea for God's
Own Country.

The book is the first person account of farmer's son Sam Marsdyke, a loner excluded from school, who spends his days roaming the nearby Moors with only his dog Sal for company. When he meets Josephine Reeves, a newcomer to the area, it seems initially he may have found his soulmate, but as his obsession grows the story becomes increasingly bleak.

"After I'd finished the course at Goldsmith's, I began thinking about the kind of character I wanted to write about," he says. "I wanted someone who was flawed, an unreliable narrator. Sam is a damaged soul, he exists in his own little world, but when he tries to break out, that's when things go wrong."

Despite growing up in Yorkshire, Raisin had little knowledge of the Moors which provide the backdrop for the novel.

"My girlfriend grew up near there, so I went up and spent a couple of days at her dad's place and mooched around," he says. "Aside from Sam's story, I wanted to look at the bigger relationship between traditional farming and how rural areas cope with outsiders moving in."

Using Arnold Kellet's Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition and Folklore as a reference point, Raisin began compiling his own lexicon of words for the central character, giving the final book a feel of both A Clockwork Orange and The Catcher in the Rye.

"It was really important to find an authentic voice," he says. "Basically, I wrote down a list of words which I thought sounded right and then added a few of my own I'd made up."

Raisin, who is currently working on his second book, has already been described as one of the country's most exciting new voices, but he is conscious the hype can fade as quickly as it has built. "I realise I've been very lucky," he says. "I felt pleased with the finished book and I hope other people like it. That's, I suppose, as much as you can ever say."

God's Own Country, published by Viking, priced £14.99, is
out in hardback on March 6.