AN author has returned to her roots and used the village she grew up in as the inspiration for her latest novel.

Jo Baker, originally from Arkholme, moved back to the village of her birth from Belfast to write her second novel, The Mermaid's Child, a lyrical fairytale inspired by her childhood.

Jo announced her arrival in the literary world last year with her first novel, Offcomer, and together with her husband, playwright Daragh Carville, and her new-born baby she now spends six months a year in a rented farmhouse in Arkholme and six months in Belfast.

While she enjoys the buzz of big city life, her heart lies in the north Lancashire countryside of her childhood.

She says: "I was dying to be back, I really missed the greenery and it's really cleansing to be over here."

The Mermaid's Child centres around Malin, a mysterious child growing up in an isolated community and while the village in the book is entirely fictional, there are parts of it, which for Jo, are unmistakeably Arkholme.

"In the book, Malins' father is a ferryman and there used to be a ferry over the river at Arkholme and Sailortown in the book is a strange version of Lancaster."

It wasn't until she attended a children's creative writing course at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal that she discovered her gift for storytelling.

She got her first big break when a friend persuaded her to write a short story for one of a series of books featuring work from cult authors such as Douglas Coupland and Irvine Welsh.

The Mermaid's Child is available in bookstores priced £14.99.