A LANGCLIFFE woman has written a new book following a young woman's journey through the pearl industry in England, Scotland and a Mississippi River town in Iowa.

The Last Pearl, published by Simon and Schuster, was written by Helene Wiggin of Langcliffe, whose pen name is Leah Fleming.

The story, set in 1879, starts in York where Greta Costello finds refuge as a Saturday girl for an old jeweller, Saul Abrahams.

Her eye for detail and appreciation of beauty persuade Saul to train her as a pearl stringer.

In Scotland she meets a man who knows the power of a perfect pearl and together they find a rare great white pearl, which is stolen from them.

Spanning generations and continents, characters in the novel trace rivers in Scotland and even the 'Mighty' Mississippi in the United States.

"The novel is set around York but takes in Scotland and the pearl city of Muscatine, Iowa, on the Mississippi, which we visited as part of the research.

"I had to go there to see all about the clamming," said Helene. "Local people collected clams for the pearls and it became a huge industry there.

"Then of course it just died and now the pearls are all plastic," she said. "In Muscatine they now have only one pearl factory, and when I visited there in 2015 they showed me the exact spot where they harvest the pearls."

Helene also spoke about how she loves people's fascinations and superstitions about pearls.

She said: "There's a wonderful Yiddish saying: 'Pearls around the neck, stones upon the heart'."