Perfect meringues - Laurie Graham

It wasn't meant to be like this. Being on television was meant to lead to a rich social life, book signings, opening supermarkets. But for Lizzie Partridge, 40-something, divorced and TV cook on Midlands This Morning, it meant dinners for one, coping with an air-head of a daughter and following middle-aged men into corner shops.

Her good friend Louie - if only he wasn't gay - thought he knew what the trouble was: Lizzie was always on the wrong side of the glass, looking in at other people's lives. Whatever the truth of that, things for Lizzie were going to get a lot worse before they got better.

Once again Laurie Graham, with her astonishing ear and eye for detail, has produced a tale that is not only funny enough to bring tears to the eyes but written with a truthfulness that makes most contemporary novels sound like fairy stories.