At first glance, Tamara Goodwin is nothing more than a poor little rich girl. But when her father’s sudden and shocking suicide derails her fast-paced teenage life in Dublin, Tamara must grieve in the quiet Irish countryside without the distraction of her weekends in Paris, her designer dresses, or her friends. Ali Coffey dives right into The Book of Tomorrow, a novel from P.S. I Love You author Cecelia Ahern, eloquently capturing Tamara’s grief and thwarted sense of place with her meticulous narration.

In one fell swoop, Tamara loses her father to suicide, her family’s lavish Dublin home to crippling debt and misfortune, and her mother to a depression so debilitating that she can’t even get out of bed. With dwindling options, Tamara and her mother pack their bags for Meath, a small town in the Irish countryside where Tamara’s distant aunt and uncle reside. Bored and restless, Tamara stumbles upon an old, padlocked diary one day while chatting with the cute boy that runs a lending library out of the back of a van. Shortly thereafter she discovers that the peculiar diary includes entries for one day in the future, seemingly authored in her own handwriting. Each day she finds herself startled by the accuracy of the prophetic diary, eventually learning to use its foresight to help her out of an unsettling situation in Meath.

In her exile to Meath, Tamara embarks upon a process of finding herself and coming to terms with her father’s suicide, all the while discovering some dark family secrets. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a predictably whimsical romantic young adult novel Ahearn’s intriguing narrative proves to be much more captivating. Coffey heightens the sense of anticipation as Tamara uncovers these secrets little by little, her tone maturing as Tamara must when facing the challenges presented to her in Meath. With its absorbing family drama and a little magic from the mysterious diary, The Book of Tomorrow is unlike anything else from the genre. Coffey embraces the challenges of such a complicated narrative, offering a listening experience that is both deeply engaging and unique. Suzanne Day