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Spotlight
Suspense, mystery, action, a little romance and lots of laughs
Out-of-work actress Derry O'Donnell is talented, professional, just a little psychic... and broke. Spurred on by an ultimatum from her awesomely high-achieving mother, Derry embarks on a part-time career as Madame Tulip, fortune teller to the rich and famous. But at her first fortune-telling gig - a celebrity charity weekend in a luxurious castle - a famous rap artist mysteriously dies. As Derry is drawn deeper into a seedy world of fashion, millionaires, horses and cocaine, she must race to save her best friend from jail and a supermodel from being murdered. Her efforts threaten to destroy her friends, her ex-lover, her father and herself. Madame Tulip is the first in a series of thrilling and hilarious Tulip adventures in which Derry O’Donnell, celebrity fortune-teller and reluctant amateur detective, plays the most exciting and perilous roles of her acting life, drinks borage tea, and fails to understand her parents. |
Excerpt
‘Darling!’ said her mother.
‘Mom!’ said Derry. She was supposed to call her Vanessa, but Mom was tolerated as long as it wasn’t in front of friends.
‘Must rush,’ said Vanessa. ‘Bye, honey.’
‘Mom!’ said Derry. ‘You only just called. Are you alright?’
‘Oh,’ said Vanessa. ‘Dear me, I’m in such a state. I’ve got Edgar Booth opening tonight. I am sooo excited.’
‘Wow,’ said Derry, always happy to encourage her mother in her chosen career as art-gallery owner extraordinaire. ‘Edgar Booth! Gee!’
Derry had only the vaguest idea who Edgar Booth was, except he was an artist, and her father Jacko, an internationally famous, if permanently broke, painter from the West of Ireland, called him ‘that baldy gobshite charlatan from LA.’ Derry guessed that meant E. Booth was hugely successful.
‘The gallery is crawling with Secret Service people, and you know what that means!’ said Vanessa, who might have squealed if she hadn’t been an upstate New Yorker, polished, cosmopolitan, and no squealer. Vanessa owned a stupendously upmarket Modern Art gallery on Fifth Avenue, others in London and Dublin, and was suspected of being filthy rich. The suspicion was mostly held by her ex-husband Jacko, who claimed that Vanessa had to be rich as she never had a problem choosing between making money and saving blind old ladies from being run over by taxis.
‘We have to take stock,’ said Vanessa. ‘I’m talking about your future, dear.’
This was not the kind of cheery, hello-darling-daughter-apple-of-my-eye phone call that Derry had hoped for when she saw the Caller ID pop up on her phone.
‘You’ve given it your best, sweetest. Time for real life, don’t you think?’
No second sight was needed to see where this was going.
‘And don’t tell me your battery is running out or a low-flying airplane towing an advertising banner has interfered with the signal,’ said Vanessa. ‘All you have to say is, yes Vanessa darling, I’d be delighted to work for you so I can live like a normal human being.’
‘Oh, come on Mom, what’s normal?’ said Derry, unwisely.
‘Normal. Like everybody else, darling. Pedicures. A decent bag. Someone to go to the Oscars with who owns their own suit. And don’t change the subject. Job. Say yes.’
Derry’s response sounded something like ‘Ummm’ squeezed through a piping bag.
Vanessa grasped the situation at once. She had a keen ear for nuances, having listened to art buyers with vastly more money than taste agonise between the pricey picture with blue splashes and pink spots and the even pricier one with pink stripes and green wavy bits.
‘A career in PR in New York, dear!’ said Vanessa. She spoke slowly, implying that the career in question was not only desirable but might even be suitable for morons. ‘Most girls would bite my arm off! What’s wrong with you!’
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