Madam Tulip by David Ahern

4 Stars

Another review which will start by me saying thank you David for asking me to read and review his novel! I always find it such a pleasure when authors come to me for a review. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book but you will find my opinions below, after a quick over view of course. 

The book follows our main character, Derry O'Donnell, who is currently an out-of-work actress. Derry has decided to move her talents to fortune telling after being given an ultimatum by her mother to make some cash. Derry names her act Madam Tulip and begins her career telling the fortunes of the rich and famous. Derry is then invited to use her talents at a celebrity charity weekend, what could go wrong eh? A famous rap artist mysteriously dies and Derry seems to change her talents again to another career choice: amateur detective. 

The characters in this novel were reasonably interesting. There was plenty of background into our main characters and the book was sort of told in quite a upbeat tone. I could almost hear each character as they spoke in their posh voices. The book is set in Ireland and although Derry is not from Ireland originally, when I was reading, the Irish accent didn't really pop into my head much. Everyone was just posh (especially her parents?). As this book is the first in what will be a series, the storyline did focus more on Derry and her future fortune telling career than the mysteries of what was to come. This didn't really bother me as I do like some background into how and where the story will go in future books. The ending wasn't overly surprising as Derry was figuring quite a lot of what was going on anyway's, but there were some elements of surprise and it was still good to find out what had really happened. The writing style was of a really good standard too, the book flowed throughout and it was easy to get into the story and keep up. 

Overall, a really good start to what will be a really good series. I will keep my eyes and ears open for the next novel in the series and good luck with the writing David!

Happy reading :)