A WOMAN with Tyne Valley connections has written a novel about the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming.

Eliza Mood’s fable O Man of Clay, is set in the future, but highlights the present day issues relating to climate change, and the urgent need for lower carbon living.

It’s the latest offering from the author, who is originally from Warkworth. The 62-year-old is the daughter of Margaret Mood, who was headteacher at Whitfield School in the late 1960s.

Eliza, who is also a university lecturer and climate activist, later lived near Hartlepool, where the novel is set.

She said: “My book is a fable about climate change. Most of the world’s major cities have been inundated with a tsunami wiping out the houses, shops and schools along the Hartlepool shore.

“The story, set over only a handful of days, flashes between the past and near future of the protagonist.”

Eliza said the story was partially inspired by childhood memories of extreme snowfall, when her family built an igloo in the garden to survive 14ft high drifts.

She began thinking about the story for the novel back in the year 2000, after being shocked by the thinning Arctic sea ice.

“We are all affected by these issues,” she added. “The whole earth is intra-dependent. and I wanted to be writing about a place people knew and were familiar. Hartlepool is a place I know and love.”

Eliza published her first novel Giving Up Architecture in 2006. O Man of Clay will be launched at the Vault on Hallgate in Hexham, on Thursday, January 16. On Thursday, January 30, Eliza will give a talk about the book at the Phil & Lit’s Hexham office. She will host a novel writing workshop at the same venue, on Friday, January 31.

The book will also be available at Cogito Books in Hexham, and Forum Books in Corbridge.