The Lovely Bones stage adaptation announced

Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones will be adapted for the stage for the first time by Bryony Lavery.

The new show, which will open at Royal and Derngate in Northampton before touring to Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham and Ipswich, will be directed by Melly Still (Coram Boy).

Sebold's 2002 novel, which won the Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction in 2003, tells the tale of a young girl Susie Salmon, who, after being murdered, watches her grieving family from the afterlife. It was adapted into a film in 2009, directed by Peter Jackson and starring Saoirse Ronan and Mark Wahlberg.

The show will be Lavery's fourth to be professionally produced this year, with the 20th anniversary production of her play Frozen opening in the West End next week, her new adaptation of Brighton Rock opening in York ahead of a UK tour this month and an adaptation of David Walliams' The Midnight Gang opening in Chichester in October. She said: "I've found that the huge story is very, very happy to change its medium and reveal its treasures on the stages at five of the UK’s leading theatres. I am a most fortunate playwright!"

Cast for the show is to be announced.

The Lovely Bones will open at Royal and Derngate on 5 September and runs there until 22 September before embarking on its five-venue tour.