Previously chosen as the Poetry Book Society's Pamphlet Choice in Autumn 2005 for Dancing to Motown (Pigeon Press), A Ghost in my House is Thorpe's first full collection. Her poetry is explicit, full-blooded, and eminently readable. Alternately vulnerable and vicious, the 'ghost' of the title is glimpsed through slashes of lipstick and a haze of cigarette smoke: in bars and bed-sits, trying on new identities and new lovers. Thorpe is too much of a realist and has too strong a comic streak to feel wistful - and her poems buzz with such energy that there is no time for lingering and regret. The reader feels that the rise and fall of girl into woman, of innocent into cynic, is one that doesn't simply end where adulthood begins: old mistakes can be repeated with new relish. We reach the end of the collection without the 'ghost' being laid to rest, indeed hoping to see much more of it in the future.