PHOTOGRAPHER Grace Shield receives an unexpected gift on her birthday. It's from her lover who died two years previously.

Grace becomes haunted by the gift, a painting of a house from her childhood. After a journalist writes an article about her, we discover that Grace was once a photographer who turned away from her career at the height of her success.

Now the novel turns to Grace's past and the tragic chapters in her eventful life unfold.

For the most part, this is a delicately written and often moving book, spoiled only by dialogue that seems too intellectual and unnatural. Grace is given to much tiresome pontificating about the nature of photography and life. Otherwise recommended.

Updated: 09:09 Wednesday, February 18, 2004