A tale about New England resilience under the challenge of climate change. In 2022, Abby leaves her husband and a promising medical career to become a country doctor and seek a better future for herself and her nine-year-old son, Bill. They leave behind a NY city that is increasingly chaotic to move to a cooperative community in the village of Williams Hill in rural Massachusetts. Following a series of weather disasters, the New England Carbon Rebellion has severely restricted the use of fossil fuels. Everything changes as transportation, education, and agriculture adapt to alternative sources of energy. What would such a new society look like? How can we build a way of life that does not depend on a disastrous carbon footprint? Green Valley is a novel about such a changed society that treads a narrow path along the precipice of climate change into a viable future. Ipsen avoids the clich of a utopia, but describes the dramatic steps that must be taken very soon if we are to have hope and avoid the dystopian end of civilization predicted by the typical cli-fi novel.

Author Biography

Anne Ipsen is a writer, speaker, and environmentalist. She first started writing by memoirs about her childhood in Denmark during WWII and growing up in the Boston area. Then she went on to write historical novels about Denmark and New England. More recently Anne's interests have turned to climate change and how to adjust and prevent the worst of the looming environmental and social disasters. Before leaving academia to write full-time, Dr. Ipsen was Professor of Public Health at the University of Minnesota. She and her husband now live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have three grown children and five grandchildren.