Have just discovered a brilliant new author, Garth Nix. Picked up Sabriel, the first book in his trilogy set in The Old Kingdom where stable and pure Charter Magic is disrupted by the powerful and dangerous power of Free Magic used by sorcerers and necromancers to help dead things cross over to Life. The only necromancer who instead binds the dead and banishes them beyond the Ninth and Final Gate of Death is the Abhorsen. A title passed from parent to child. Sabriel, the daughter of Abhorsen knows little of what this entails but is forced to find out when her father is trapped in Death and one of the Greater Dead threatens to cross over. The first orginal piece of fantasy writing I have seen in a long time.