Death of a Ghost

Death of a Ghost was published by HarperCollins (January 2006)

When sixteen-year-old Ossian reluctantly returns to Lychfont with his father, he finds things bizarrely familiar and yet oddly different. Reacquainting himself with the Frazer family, he finds himself questioning the accuracy of certain childhood memories and wondering why the place seems to hold such power over him. One thing he is sure of, however: the ghosts are still haunting him. While Ossian puzzles over his existence, the goddess Sulis searches for her lost love. She must call in a scryer to track him down wherever he may be, for their wedding must go ahead. After all, she and Ossian were made for each other...

"Like [Alan] Garner, Charles Butler draws on myth in his fiction; like Garner, he examines the nature of time; and like Garner, he is a superb stylist. Yet Butler is no clone, and Death of a Ghost beautifully illustrates how he uses mythological elements in an entirely contemporary context. His teen protagonists are often outsiders - lonely or damaged - and it is this combination of psychological study and mythological framework, plus a thriller pace, which makes Butler's novels so unusal." L. Lee Lowe