‘It’s as if you’ve entirely ignored all the parameters I set out for you. Carolyn, our heroine, is supposed to fall deeply in love with Marcel, the ski instructor, while only pretending to despise him. Instead, you have her actually despising him.’

‘Yes, but I thought your idea was a bit Jane Austen so—’

‘And what’s wrong with Jane Austen, might I ask? Her books have lasted for, what, four, five hundred years?’

‘There’s nothing at all wrong with Jane Austen, if you are Jane Austen. But if you’re not, then perhaps it can seem a bit silly to recycle one of her standard plot devices. Can’t we leave that sort of thing to Hollywood?’

‘But the way you write him goes against the whole spirit of the novel. Marcel is, for want of a better word, a complete dick.’

‘He is, isn’t he?’ said the ghost, looking delighted by this description.

‘But that’s not a good thing! He’s supposed to be gruff and unapproachable, wounded by a terrible secret from his past, but underneath … underneath, there is a kind, sexy billionaire – possibly with a neglected child in boarding school who only wants him to notice her – just waiting to get out. What he needs is the love of a good woman to strip away the dark exterior.’

‘Yes,’ said the ghost, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘But don’t you think that’s been done to death?’

‘Everything’s been done to death, my dear,’ said Beverley. ‘Life has been done to death. But we keep on breathing, don’t we?’

‘It’s just … and I don’t mean any offence here—’

‘I hate it when anyone starts a sentence in that way,’ said Beverley, finishing her Bellini and ordering another with a quick point to the waitress. ‘You can always guarantee that they’re about to offend you.’

‘It’s just that I feel your novels have a certain Groundhog Day feel to them.’

Beverley blinked. ‘I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,’ she said.

‘They’re repetitive. The same stories, the same characters, repeated over and over. Don’t you want your books to surprise people?’

‘I most certainly do not,’ said Beverley, picking up the new drink and swallowing a third of it. ‘Nobody likes surprises.’

‘I do.’

‘Then you’re abnormal. My readers want to be comforted by my books. They want to open one and know that they can sink into it as they might their favourite armchair. And when they’re finished, they don’t want to remember a word of it.’

The ghost nodded, considering this. ‘Perhaps we have different expectations of what a book should be,’ she said.

‘Perhaps we do,’ agreed Beverley. ‘In your mind, it’s perfectly fine to write Marcel as a total bastard with no redeeming features at all—’