The Accidental

''My mother began me one evening in 1968 on a table in the café of the town''s only cinema . . .'' One hot summer a stranger arrives at the Norfolk holiday home of the Smart family. Intriguing, beguiling, arresting, Amber brings love, joy, pain and not a little upheaval, throwing the carefully ordered world of the Smarts into the air. They will be forever changed by Amber but how will they know whether it is for the bad, the good or something else entirely? ''Joyous ... writing as rapture, as giddy delight'' The Times ''Funny, sexy, poignant, bewitching'' Observer