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Mumma′s childhood was warm with baking. She was a good girl. She was Mother′s Little Helper, The Wee Chef, an Apple Dumpling in a green pinny. Her time at home revolved
around cooking with her mother. Baking together was
as close as they ever got.
Eighteen-year-old Mumma has a belly full of baby when she is removed to a remote island by her respectable family. Alone for the first time in her life, she decides the enforced isolation can offer hope and a new beginning. The birth of Lola Belle -- her Lolly -- sees Mumma determined to create a world of love, safety, and a strong sense of home. Mumma grows into this world, expanding on her mother′s own recipes, cooking up a warmth and comfort that nurtures and protects Lolly and beckons Mister, her neighbour′s reticent son.
But people grow and change and the wider world will always intrude. Lolly becomes aware of Mumma′s secrets -- her untolds, her half-tolds, her fictions and lies -- and begins to struggle, not only with her place in the family, but with her sense of self within a female skin.
Eating Lolly is a richly textured novel that weaves the pleasures of cooking and the freedom of daydreams into a story of a young woman′s fierce resilience, rending vulnerability, and unexpected love.
′stimulates the reader′s appetite and slowly roasts the reader′s heart′ Bookseller + Publisher
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