A new novel written by acclaimed author Liz Moore has a Dorchester connection: It is set in Savin Hill. “The Unseen World” hit bookshelves and mailboxes on July 26. The Washington Post — the first major news outlet to review the book— called it “elegant and ethereal.”

Moore, 33, grew up in Framingham, but spent a lot of time in and around Dorchester.

“I wanted to locate [the novel] in a Boston neighborhood that had a long history of being a close-knit place full of families, because the book is so much about the theme of family —or lack thereof— that it felt right to set it there,” said Moore. “My aunt has lived in Dorchester for decades, and was living there when I was growing up, so I was familiar with it from that.

“And I knew two people who actually grew up in Savin Hill who I was able to interview for some good details. One even gave me a tour of the neighborhood and pointed out where kids would hang out when she was growing up there,” she said.

A lover of short stories, Moore has quickly made a name for herself as a writer. She works as an assistant professor of writing at Holy Family University in Philadelphia and is also a new mother. Her work has appeared in Tin House, The New York Times, and Narrative Magazine. She’s won many awards, but the most recent one was the biggest: the 2014 Rome Prize in Literature. She spent 2014-15 in the Eternal City writing full-time at the American Academy completing “The Unseen World.”

The book, she says, “is the story of a computer-scientist single father and his child-prodigy daughter, whom he home-schools and brings with him to the lab every day in Boston in the 1980s,” said Moore. “At a certain point, two things become clear: that the father’s mind is failing him, and that he has been dishonest about certain parts of his past. The daughter has to figure out who he really is, using evolving technology to do so, and also come to terms with being betrayed in a sense by the person she idolizes most in the world. The book follows her into her adulthood, and raises questions about the future of computing, specifically artificial intelligence and virtual worlds.”

Moore has kicked off her book tour and will travel from city to city until the end of October making two stops in Boston on the way. Join her for a book reading and signing on Thurs., Aug. 11 at 6:30 p.m. at Dorchester’s Grove Hall Branch of the BPL or head over to the Harvard Book Store on Mon., Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. for a co-reading with author Nellie Hermann.

“Although I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, this is the first book I’ve written that was set in the area. I’m not sure why it took me over a decade of being away to return to Boston, but there was something very satisfying about returning home, so to speak, for my third book,” said Moore.