Tiger Tiger is the diary of wannabe writer Rebecca Somersby. The novel is named after the nickname she gives to Niamh, the flame haired daughter of her neighbour and sometime love interest Fergus. Rebecca is a thirty-something single girl living in North West London, writing a throw-away column for a lifestyle magazine. When we meet her she is in somewhat of a rut, albeit a comfortable one. She is pampered by her super rich family (living in the flat of her absent and bohemian aunt and indulging in the beneficence of her Daphne DuMaurier obsessed mother), benefits from the nepotism of her best friend (and editor) Ana and has her diva-like behaviour indulged by her gay best friend Jonny. Rebecca decides that this year is going to be her year, the year she takes control of her life and strikes for long overdue independence. And the year she finally writes her oft talked about book. Unfortunately Rebecca is somewhat of a ‘method writer’ and seems to feel that she really needs to experience things to write them, be this her rubber bound ‘sexpedition’ to a fetish club which ends in a painful few weeks in a plaster cast, or her revelation that to write love she needs to be in love. The only time her writing seems to be organic is in the stories she writes to entertain Niamh, however she writes these in a purely non cynical way simply to please the little girl that she grows to adore.
