The Ice Queen By Alice Hoffman Vintage, £6.99

"Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back. They bruise and bake and come back to haunt you."

So starts Alice Hoffman's latest novel. They are the words of the unnamed narrator who as an eight-year-old girl wished her mother dead – a wish which ended her world.

Her mother was killed in a car crash. She was hit by lightning. But she survived. And when she met another lightning survivor "Lazaraus" Jones, two worlds collide.

Their passionate affair pits ice against fire. And through their love the narrator starts to learn to forgive herself for that initial wish.

This is a bewitching, heart-breaking story, beautifully told.