THREE years after quitting the music business and America to live the life of a virtual recluse in an English country village, multi-millionaire former Fleetwood Mac rocker Christine McVie is to bring out a comeback solo album this summer, we can disclose.

Singer-songwriter and keyboard player Christine, 59, quit Fleetwood Mac and her former glittering Los Angeles existence, as we revealed exclusively three years ago, for a new life of quiet anonymity back in the UK in a beautiful home on the edge of a village on the Kent/Sussex border, following a divorce from her second husband Eddie Kinsella.

Now Birmingham-born Christine, who wrote and sang lead vocals on some of Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits, is to revive her music career as a solo artist, just as her former band mates - Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham and her ex-husband John McVie - have released an acclaimed new album Say You Will and embarked on a huge, extended world tour.

Christine's long-time manager Martin Wyatt, who remains close to her, says: "The new songs are distinctly Christine McVie in style and we have got to the stage of mixing and will have the album ready in six to eight weeks.

"Record companies are constantly ringing up to hear the songs or hear the finished album and we are saying we will ring you when we have got it ready."

Christine still prefers the quiet life, we understand. A friend says: "She won't even answer the phone in her house and, if someone answers it for her, she will not talk unless it is a really old and trusted friend.

"She does not want to be asked if she regrets leaving the band. The album came about when friends heard the songs she was doodling with and urged her to write again."