THE LOVELY BONES – ALICE SEBOLD-KAREN THOMPSON WALKER

A haunting and heartbreaking novel narrated from heaven as a young girl watches over her family and killer. My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In heaven, Susie Salmon can have whatever she wishes for – except what she most wants, which is to be back with the people she loved on earth. In the wake of her murder, Susie watches as her happy suburban family is torn apart by grief; as her friends grow up, fall in love, and do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But as Susie will come to realize, even in death, life is not quite out of reach . . . An astonishing novel about life and death, memory and forgetting, and finding light in the darkest places. Alice Sebold s book inspired the Peter Jackson film, starring Susan Sarandon and Saoirse Ronan. Moving and compelling . . . I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed – Maggie O Farrell (author of The Marriage Portrait), Sunday Telegraph