Margaret is 18 years old and already pregnant when her parents send her to live in a tumbledown beach shack on a remote island. Alone for the first time in her life she is forced to reinvent her past in order to embrace her future. She renames herself Mumma and begins a relationship with her young neighbour, Mister. Together, she and Mister raise her daughter Lola Belle (Lolly) as their own. Home-cooked meals are the mainstay of this eccentric family unit but as Lolly approaches adolescence her mother’s luscious food no longer soothes her. Clues to Mumma’s pre-island life inevitably bubble to the surface and Lolly seeks answers. As her daughter’s world begins to unravel, Mumma must confront her own past and reassess the wisdom of decisions she made long ago.

Eating Lolly explores the legacy of long-held family secrets as they play out in the minutiae of domestic life from one generation to the next. Adelaide writer Corrie Hosking was chosen as one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists in 2005.