The Tulip Touch

Obsessive friendship is explored in this well-paced novel from award winning author Anne Fine (Madame Doubtfire, Flour Babies etc.). It moves smoothly in the friendship between Natalie and Tulip from easy, mild naughtiness to downright sinister aggression, hatred even. Tulip is the violent child about to crack, the child who echoes famous cases in our recent news. What elevates this subtle telling is that Fine manages to convey sympathetically the probable reasons why Tulip is the way she is and developed into the hardened pyromaniac that she becomes... 'There's no particular moment when someone goes to the bad. Each horrible thing that happens makes a difference, and there had probably been too many of those already in Tulip's life.'