Learn to bake with Britain's favourite women's fiction author, Marian Keyes - author of Watermelon and Anybody Out There - in her startlingly honest cook-book Saved by Cake.

Saved by Cake gives an extremely honest account of Marian Keyes' recent battle with depression, and how baking has helped her. A complete novice in the kitchen, Marian decided to bake a cake for a friend and that was it - she realized that baking was what she needed to do in order to get her through each day. And so she baked, and she wrote her recipes down, and little by little the depression started to lift, along with her sponges...

With chapters on cupcakes, cheesecakes, meringues and macaroons, chocolate cakes, fruit cakes and favourite classics, Marian's recipes are aimed firmly at beginner bakers, offering hints and tips to help along the way. Never patronizing, always honest and witty, accessible and full of fun, the bakes and cakes that Marian serves up in this cookbook will put a smile on your face and make you happy. From her Consistently Reliable Cupcakes and Very Chocolately Macaroons, to the ease of her Fridge-set Honeycomb Cheesecake, you will want to have a go at making all of Marian's recipes. The shoe and handbag biscuits particularly. Very covetable. Very Marian.

'Medically speaking, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Which is very annoying to discover when you're right in the middle of one. Whatever was going on with me, I had to wait it out. I had to find ways of passing the time until I was restored to myself again. So I baked a cake - a chocolate cheesecake, as it happens. And I enjoyed making it so much that I baked another. And another' Marian Keyes.

Marian Keyes is the international bestselling author of Watermelon, Rachel's Holiday, Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story and This Charming Man. Her two collections of journalism, Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also available from Penguin.