With her new novel The Age of Miracles, Karen Thompson Walker adds to a current crop of dystopian novels that includes The Hunger Games and Blood Red Road.

The apocalyptic element is a slowing of the planet's rotation, so that days and nights become longer and gravity is affected. Yet the ensuing climate change and extinction of species are merely backdrops to Walker's main story, which focuses on an 11-year-old named Julia, the transitions in her life and the breakdown of her parents' marriage.

Karen Thompson Walker creates a human story within an end-of-the-world scenario in her debut novel The Age of Miracles. (Random House)

In the context of the world ending, “all the usual things in adolescence, they started to seem extraordinary and more meaningful than I might have otherwise realized because [these characters] could be the last generation going through all those firsts,” Walker, 32, told CBC News.

The result is a very human coming-of-age story that has been hailed by critics as "powerful" and "haunting."

Despite being Walker's debut book, the title sparked a bidding war. In New York, Random House reportedly paid $1 million US for publishing rights.

Meanwhile, River Road Entertainment has also optioned the film adaptation rights and enlisted Canadian Seth Lochhead (Hanna) to begin writing a screenplay.

The Brooklyn-based author said she feels very lucky to have received so much attention and that the publicity surrounding the book has been “surreal.”