AN author is on the verge of transatlantic success after her first novel was picked up by an American publisher.

Anne Kelly's book Nobody's Child - a tale of 19th Century Irish emigrants and their struggles to build a new life in the US - has been released by Baltimore-based Publish America.

The book is being launched in the UK later this month and, after seeing her manuscript rejected by 30 different publishers, the 53-year-old author is now hoping for a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ms Kelly, a medical secretary at the University Hospital of North Durham, has been writing since the age of 15, but this is her first published book.

The book is set in 1845, the story of two sisters caught up in the horrors of the Irish Potato Famine, who are forced to flee their native country and start again thousands of miles from home.

The book draws to some extent on the author's childhood in Armagh and weaves in some of her experiences and memories, but her inspiration came during a visit to Ireland a couple of years ago.

She said: "I was touring around Ireland and I came across these famine cottages which were abandoned. It started from there, imagining the lives of the people who lived there.

"But the book isn't a dirge, really its a story about triumph over adversity."

Ms Kelly, who moved to Durham City 30 years ago and now lives in Newton Hall, said it had taken 18 months to write the book.

Nobody's Child is to be launched in the UK at the Tyneside Irish Centre, in Gallowgate, Newcastle, on March 14.

Copies of the book will be available through Waterstones and Amazon.