The Travelling Hornplayer

Lydia is killed in a car accident, but she returns to her bereft sister Ellen as a benign ghost, to haunt the lives of those around her: Jonathan, her teacher; his daughter Stella, who, on the day of Lydia's death discovers that her father has been having an affair with the gladiatorial, teasing Sonia; Stella's genius painter-boy lover Izzy, whom she leaves behind as she flees to the arms of kindly Peregrine.

Along with good stepmothers, bad mothers, strange professors and wicked monks, their lives collide in a breathtaking finale.

Shortlisted for the 1998 Whitbread Novel Award.