The Tarot Reader's Daughter by Helen Dunwoodie

The Tarot Reader’s Daughter has been out for most of this year. We have one copy sitting on the shelf, that has not sold, for all I think it should - usually when people ask for your help, they’re not asking for their teenage daughters. And I’m never quite sure if the things I find so wonderful in it are going to appeal to other people.

The ‘tarot-reader’s daughter’ is a girl named Rosa, and the story follows her uncovering of events that occured in her family’s past, and her attempts to reconcile them. Here’s the thing that I think is really cool: they’re folkies, and the story is steeped in this. Rosa is named after a folk-song, ‘Dark Rosaleen’, and folk music is important throughout, especially when a particular famous folk singer becomes the key to unravelling the mystery of Rosa’s mother’s past.

The story begins when her family has just moved to the countryside - to Rosa’s displeasure. The move has been for her brother’s health, but doesn’t provide much in the way of benefits for her - whilst her brother is able to make friends instantly, Rosa is stuck with a long bus-ride to school in the morning, and the one person her own age in the area is the mysterious and attractive Andy, whom Rosa has instantly judged as being stuck-up. So she’s already feeling rebellious when she moves there, and when she discovers her mother’s been keeping secrets, she’s determined to get them out in the open.

The first mystery is when, whilst unpacking, Rosa discovers an old pack of tarot cards amongst her mother’s things - unused, clearly, but carefully stowed away in a velvet bag. The idea of her mother reading tarot stuns for Rosa, and certainly when she mentions them, her mother tells her off for snooping, and her questions are brushed aside - it’s made clear the cards are nothing but trouble. But Rosa can’t see how they can be so bad, and haunted by their images she takes them out again, and finds she has her own talent. But they aren’t the only mystery in her mother’s past.

The second mystery is revealed when she is at Andy’s house, and meets his aristocratic and disturbed mother. Rosa’s own comes up in the conversation - though the exact relationship is not revealed, and Rosa discovers that Andy’s mother went to art school with her own. But as far as Rosa knows, her mother never went to art school. They’re certainly on at her enough of the time to - so how could her mother have kept it from her? Worse though, is Andy’s mother’s hatred for her own, inspired by some event she will not properly explain, something to do with the cards - and Rosa is determined to find out just what happened that was so bad. Andy becomes her accomplice, though their relationship is prickly and filled with misunderstandings.

What Rosa discovers is that people aren’t always what you think they are - just as Andy isn’t really a snobbish rich boy, her mother has a whole dramatic, romantic past that she’s been completely unaware of. Events weave together, linking Rosa’s own life to her mother’s, but with Rosa deciding that, whatever happens, it will be out in the open. The confrontation, when it comes, is ugly, and whilst Rosa’s actions aren’t always admirable, the way she faces up to them and her emotions is.

It’s an utterly engaging story, with the right mix of mystery and romance to pull you along. The resolution is a satisfying one too, and while you’ve been expecting Rosa and Andy to get together, the way it happens is completely uncloy. It’s not a fairy tale ending, but it’s a real one, and Rosa will have no regrets. It’s a wonderful book, and I’m determined to get it off the shelf somehow, before I’m forced to buy it myself. It deserves to be out there.