As soon as I began reading this novel I fell in love with it. Two pages in and I was hooked and it became my constant companion until I reluctantly finished it. It is everything you want from popular fiction – a fascinating setting, brilliant characterisations, humour and pathos. Best of all, it’s a page-turner.

Set in the 1960s, it is about the lives of black maids in white homes in a conservative state in the US. This is race-relations in the context of women’s lives in a suburban, small-town setting. Three women decide to expose the truth of what it means to be black, female and in domestic service and in so doing risk drawn-out retaliation. Written in first-person, Stockett effortlessly creates such convincing characters you worry about them and miss them when the novel draws to a close. Not a bad effort for a debut novel! If there is any justice in the publishing world, this will be a huge hit. Don’t miss it.