My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighbourhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer.

This is Susie Salmon, speaking from heaven - which looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets, counsellors to help newcomers adjust, and friends to room with - except the one thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth.

Watching from her place in heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from each other as they try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet...

******

It's sad but also uplifting and reassuring. Definately one of those books tht should be read.

I'm a Canadian and I was attending events at the Book Festival in Edinburgh. I found the book in the lobby tent on August 20 (I think) and because I'd been wanting to read it (and because Jane Urquhart's "The Map of Glass" had failed to hold my attention) I decided to adopt "The Lovely Bones" as a travel companion. I found it to be an attention-grabbing book, essentially slight but wish-fulfilling in a delicious way. I carried it from Edinburgh to Inverness where I left it on top of a mailbox, postbox?, in the Inverness railway station. I hope some over-vigilant security officer didn't throw it out. Thanks to pumpkin-head for releasing this book.

The #3 box below is difficult to reply to. Perhaps needs re-wording. I didn't leave the book where I found it, but it is back in the wild (I assume).

Audrey

CAUGHT IN EDINBURGH SCOTLAND