Puccini's Ghosts - Softcover

'The story of Lila's getting-of-wisdom is powerfully told, bristling with tension and horribly funny.' -- Kate Saunders, The Times 'Morag Joss's contribution to the coming-of-age genre is remarkable in its astuteness, humour and eloquence ... mesmerising' -- Katie Gould, Scotland on Sunday 'A gripping and beautifully composed novel. It is both darkly hilarious and deeply moving' -- Herald 'She is excellent at portraying a child's loss of innocence and the desperation of those who find themselves trapped in a small Scottish town. It will be very interesting to see what she does next.' -- Scotsman 'Morag Joss displays an astonishing insight into the darker recesses of the human soul' -- The Times on HALF BROKEN THINGS 'Joss writes with a vividness that captures exactly particular moods and atmospheres. The darkness of her main themes, the sense of impending catastrophe that hangs over the story, is relieved by a lightness of touch - and the combined result is a very fine novel indeed.' -- Sunday Herald 'Having reinvented herself successfully with Puccini's Ghosts, Joss should never feel the need to return to a life of crime.' -- South China Morning Post

It is the summer of 1960 and fifteen-year-old Lila's life is about to change forever. Set free from the confines of school, her prison is the small unremarkable town of Burnhead, on the west coast of Scotland. She dreams of escape: from Burnhead, from the damp, from her mother's hysterics, her father's stolidity, and her parents' loveless marriage. Salvation arrives in the form of her beloved Uncle George, a music teacher from London who decides to stage an amateur production of Puccini's Turandot. Lila, in love for the first time, maps out a future for herself in which reality and fantasy fuse to form a dangerous mixture, threatening to destroy herself and all those around her.