I used to entertain people with my excellent East Baltimore accent at parties ("Aoh yeah hon, all's zere wen 'at sugar plant sploded - ey was ambylances an pleece as fawr azzy ah could see! When a strict new English teacher sees potential in Shiraz, she dares to hope that there’s more to like that troublemaking and minimum wage. When she's not writing comedy Grace is to be found 'faffing about on the internet' or 'faffing about in the garden or kitchen' or 'just 'faffing about generally.

I'm not gonna give away the plot but any girl (or boy if you really want to read a really girly book) will enjoy it. Admittedly I like me some man candy in YA, but if the romance in this book would've been fully formed I think it would've been detrimental to the book.

Soon Shiraz is hanging out with other boffin types, amongst them the gorgeous Joshua, with the sharp cheekbones and the whopping allowance. From 2011 to 2017 she wrote a restaurant column for the Evening Standard, and became the Guardian's restaurant critic in 2018.

I may not have understood everything she was saying (thankfully there was an English dictionary for all the American cousins) but the girl is bloody brilliant!The divine Shiraz Bailey Wood is back to enlighten us on the multi-layered, rich tapestry that is her life in Goodmayes Essex.