Finlay visited an ochre mine in Australia, dipped her hand in a tub of mercury in Spain, and in Chile squashed several cochineal bugs to death to see their precious red blood that is still used in lipstick and cherry cola today. In 2000, she visited the lapis lazuli mines of Sar-e-Sang in Afghanistan, near the Taleban front line, where women were banned.

It all sounds a long way from her old job in Quarry Bay, but leaving wasn't easy for Finlay. As arts editor, she had covered the top concerts and theatre performances in Hong Kong and the region, interviewing local and visiting musicians, dancers, dramatists and artists. She was lucky enough to go on tour with cellist Yo-Yo Ma; has travelled with violin maestro Pinchas Zukerman on a private jet; and once flew to Moscow to spend the day with the Bolshoi Ballet. 'It was the best job in the world,' 37-year-old Finlay says. 'To better it, I had to do something completely different, to follow a dream.'

The months of intensive travel, research and writing finally paid off in September, when Hodder & Stoughton published Finlay's first book. Initial British sales have been strong, Hong Kong booksellers and distributors have already had to reorder, and a US edition will be published by Random House imprint Ballantine Books as Colour: Stories From The Paintbox in January.

The vivacious writer grew up in suburban London, studied anthropology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and started her career as a trainee manager at Reuters. With a yen for journalism, she enrolled in a three-month course at the London College of Printing and became set on covering the handover of Hong Kong to China for the Post. The paper's editor was less certain and knocked Finlay back six times. After her seventh approach, Finlay started at the Post in August 1991. By 1997 she was arts editor, covering the impact of the handover on the arts scene.

Finlay's curiosity about colour began when she was eight; she was impressed by the coloured light shining through the 800-year-old stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral in France. She was perplexed when her father explained that it was impossible to reproduce the exact hue of the blue glass and then vowed she would one day unravel the mysteries of colours.

Finlay also stumbled upon 'colourful' anecdotes during her journalistic travels. She was inspired by incidents such as 'the astonishing discovery that English artists once smeared dead humans on to their canvases'. But she also needed to secure an advance from an international publisher to fund her book's research, so she and food-writer friend Nell Nelson enrolled in a three-week evening course on how to write a book proposal. The course was run by veteran local non-fiction author Valery Garrett, whose ninth book, Heaven Is High, The Emperor Far Away, was published this year. Within a year, Nelson's book, Eat Cook Hong Kong, was out through local publisher Asia 2000, Finlay had scored her contract with Hodder, and Garrett had received e-mails expressing 'great gratitude'. 'I couldn't believe it [such a book] hadn't been done before,' she says. 'It's a zeitgeist in a way.'

This month, Finlay left her Mid-Levels flat for the new base she will share with fiance and fellow-writer Martin Palmer in Manchester, England. She says she will travel much during the next two years, researching the follow-up to Colour, but won't discuss its subject matter until she has signed a deal for its publication. The bubbly author insists she will return to Hong Kong often, however. 'I love Hong Kong,' Finlay says. 'It doesn't have colourful walls, I admit, but the spirit of the place is quite vibrant.'