The competition has now closed. We asked Louise to choose the five lucky people who would receive copies of her new book, the winners are: Claire Butler, Nickie Chapman, Charlotte Hoskins, Amanda H and The Book Whisperer – congratulations!

Louise has also replied to all of you who asked her questions in your posts, so see your posts below where we have added Louise’s replies.

Louise had this to say to everyone who entered: ‘Thank you for all these lovely messages – let me know what you think of Other People’s Secrets just as soon as you’ve read it!’

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Today we have the pleasure of welcoming bestselling author Louise Candlish to the BookRabbit warren. Louise’s latest book, Other People’s Secrets is released 8 July. You can find out more about Louise in her author profile, and enjoy our exclusive audio interview below. We also have five copies of Other People’s Secrets to give away, courtesy of Sphere/Little, Brown (thanks Tamsin!) so make sure you enter the competition at the end of the interview.

Welcome to BookRabbit Louise, and congratulations on the book which we understand is getting a fantastic response from the early readers. Can you tell us how you would sum up your latest novel Other People’s Secrets?

It’s quite an intense and sexy emotional drama, set in a very remote and romantic part of Italy – the Italian lakes, Lake Orta. Two families meet accidentally they’re sharing the same space on holiday one is in the main villa and the other is in the boathouse attached to the villa… Play clip >

How did your idea for the story come about? Did you start with the Sale family?

Yes, I did start with the Sale family, and Ginny and Adam are added quite late in the planning process because I felt I needed something to contrast, a counterpoint really to the Sales. The Sales kind of came out of observations on holiday I’d made myself… Play clip >

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The TV Book Club has returned for a new eight-part series of Summer Reads, and we were poised on the edge of our sofa at 7.30pm last night as things kicked off on More 4.

The good.

Dave Spikey was great. He’d noticeably stepped up his game, taking control of the discussion and really getting under the skin of the book. Extracting intelligent comment from the other guests and really giving the show a lift. He’s taken up the reins, and we’re relieved.

There was a new addition focusing on the opinions of a local reading group which worked well and will be a nice weekly slot to look forward to. Also a feature on e-readers, although the information felt a little stale and dated given how rapidly the market in e-readers (iPad anyone?) is moving, it was at least another focus on books.

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It’s official. The Good Life is back. Self-sufficiency is rife – we’re all rearing chickens in our back gardens and bee-keeping on the weekends. And in the kitchen, homemade jam is making a comeback.

But this time round, the jam is more edgy and less WI, the recipes far easier, and the cook holding our hand through this sticky situation is just like you and me – pushed for time, self-taught, and definitely not a slave to the stove.

Meet food writer Ghillie James, whose debut cookbook Jam, Jelly & Relish is out now and will seriously make you back away from that that shameful offering of gummy goo on the supermarket shelf.

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Today we have the pleasure of rabbiting with bestselling author Kathryn Stockett as she hits the UK running on a week-long publicity tour. Her debut novel The Help, rejected by publishers more than 60 times, is now a wildly successful New York Times bestseller and a film of the book is already in production with Steven Spielberg’s company Dreamworks. If that isn’t a lesson in tenacity for budding writers…

The novel follows the relationships between African-American maids and their white employees in 1960s Mississippi, and praise has been lavish: ‘Captivating, absorbing, immensely funny, a compulsively readable story, full of heart and history, likeable and believable characters…’

Synopsis

Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver…

Amidst the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, three Mississippi women quietly start their own revolution with a book, some toilets and a chocolate pie… There’s Aibleen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.

Skeeter, Aibleen and Minny. No one would ever believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell…

Read a BookRabbit review of The Help, read the first two chapters, and enjoy our exclusive interview with the author below. We also have 5 copies of The Help to give away courtesy of Penguin, so make sure you enter the competition at the end of the interview.

Welcome to BookRabbit Kathryn, and congratulations on the success of The Help, can you tell us how the idea for the novel came about?

I was living in New York City, I’d taken some time off from work to do some writing and it was the day before 9/11. When it happened we couldn’t call our families because our phone lines were cut and our cell phones didn’t work and we just couldn’t tell our families we were ok. So I started writing in the voice of our family maid Demetrie, just for comfort I guess, and it all just came out (that’s the character of Aibleen). Play clip >

There has been a lot of comment about you as a white woman, writing in the voice of black women. Did you ever question whether this was your story to tell?

Well I didn’t think anyone was going to read it when I first started writing it and then a few years down the road when I started sending it out I had 60 plus rejections from agents then I was pretty sure then no one was going to read it, and then when it was going to be published I thought well maybe my friends would buy it, so I really didn’t have that fear of writing it so much, but once I found it was going to be published I kind of braced myself for a lot of criticism, I’m still kind of bracing myself waiting for it, I’m sure it’s coming at some point, but it hasn’t come yet. Play clip >

The characters in the book seem to be a favourite aspect of The Help for many readers, do you have a favourite?

Aibleen and Minny I had a ball with, Minny was pretty fun because you can let it all out, she’ll say anything or do anything. Aibleen was a little bit more difficult than Minny because she was more careful. Play clip >

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We know not all of you avid BookRabbiters are necessarily avid Twitterers, so we thought we’d do a round-up of the book news that we tweeted this week for you to read at leisure, on your shiny new iPads…

1. Book deal for stay-at-home cookery-blogging Dad and his two-year-old son Archie

We came across the My Daddy Cooks blog purely by chance, then had a bit of Twitter chat with its owner, Nick Coffer (@mydaddycooks). Nick started the blog in November 2009 when he lost his business. As he explains: ‘It’s a video blog of me and two-year-old Archie, cooking lovely, creative, tasty food together in our kitchen at home…’ but to be honest it’s a lot more than that – take a look and you’ll see what we mean. Anyway, it has become a humungunanimous viral hit (of course it’s not a word) with a few thousand people watching the cookery videos every day. Such a hit in fact, that Hodder & Stoughton have offered Nick a book deal and the ‘My Daddy Cooks’ Cookbook will be published in March 2011. Archie is a total dude, often breaking into fits of giggles over a run away lemon and adding more than a ‘dash’ of pepper (aka an entire chubby handful) and the recipes are seriously down-to-earth, but delicious. If the book isn’t a smash, we’ll eat our cotton socks.

Read more about MyDaddyCooks: Is baby Archie the new Jamie Oliver? (Evening Standard article)

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The competition has now closed.

We asked the author, Anne O’Brien to choose the three winners herself, and they are: Tracey, Katie Mackenzie and Vic, congratulations! Here are their comments with Anne’s replies:

Tracey: This looks a fantastic book. I can imagine sitting in the garden and getting engrossed… Heaven xx

Anne: I like the visual idea, and I love gardens. Heavenly reading, Tracey.

Katie Mackenzie: Sounds a good read, my daughter loves history, I’m hoping to win for her! Thank you x

Anne: I’m all in favour of encouraging the next generation into historical fiction. Perhaps you’ll read it too and enjoy Anne Neville before you pass it on, Katie.

Vic: I was at school during the 70s when we didn’t actually learn anything about history in our lessons! I now love reading historical fiction and find it a great way to start filling in my historical blanks.

Anne: As a previous teacher of history, I had to choose this one – and hope to put right some of the mistakes of the past!  Hope this fills in some of your blanks in a very relaxing and pleasant manner, Vic.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the competition. Have you seen our latest interview and book giveaway?

A rich and compelling tale of love, ambition, lust and intrigue, Virgin Widow introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the very centre of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe, and survived by following her heart.

We have some big fans of historical fiction here at BookRabbit, and we’re really taken with Virgin Widow by Anne O’Brien (released in paperback on Friday 21 May by Mira Books). It’s about Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker, set in the time of the War of the Roses and beyond. It tells the story of how Anne deals with court life at a young age and her relationship with Richard III, Edward of Lancaster and Richard’s brother, Edward IV. If you are a Philippa Gregory or Alison Weir fan, you will love this book. We’re so sure you’ll love it, we’re giving you the chance to WIN a copy at the end of the interview. Good luck!

Special thanks to Penny Cunningham one of our intrepid BookRabbiters who reviewed the book (read her review) and suggested some of the interview questions.

The novel combines historical fact and fiction seemlessly. Did you begin your research with a factual character, place or event?

I began with Anne Neville. I read all I could about her, and from there branched out to look at the characters who were involved with her. My thinking tends to be very visual, I see scenes in particular, and I do this for all my books – I write a list of particular dramatic scenes or events that I think ought to play a part in the book and that of course brings in subsidiary characters. Sometimes it surprises me, and takes me off in a direction that I didn’t think would become important, but then it does. I’m also very fond of dialogue (in my own reading too). Long pages of description, even though they might set the scene, make me turn over the pages more quickly! So I try to intersperse the two, because that’s what pleases me, and I think it’s possible to get over a character or the essence of a place or a scene using dialogue.

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