Award-winning Kilnadeema author Méabh McDonnell, who will be familiar to people who frequent Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop, where she’s Children’s Book Manager, has had a new novel published.

Any Way You Slice It is Méabh’s first novel for Young Adults, and follows the publication of her children’s book, Into the Witchwood, early last year.

The central character in Any Way You Slice It is Carrie Quinn, for whom baking isn’t just a hobby: it’s her future. Winning the Castlecreagh baking competition and becoming best young pastry chef in the country is the first step towards achieving her dream. But when Carrie and handsome pastry prodigy Dara Harte,  her sworn nemesis, are disqualified from the event, it seems like her future has crumbled.

That is, unless the pair can transcend their rivalry and complicated home lives, and find a way to co-operate.

This YA romance from Méabh was inspired by her love of classic rom coms, baking shows and, of course, cake.

Baking has always been her “comfort and indulgence”, she says.

“I’m not a prize-winning baker by any means, but the recipes I love to bake, I bake well. It’s one of the things that has always made me feel better when I’m down. It’s the thing that my family bring when they’re going to a party, it’s also the thing they offer when someone is going through a hard time.

“My earliest memories of my grandmother are of her baking at the kitchen table, and the mixer and a bag of flour were never far from my mother’s kitchen countertop growing up.”

Although Méabh doesn’t bake competitively, she loves bakery shows, “watching bakers rush around a kitchen, tossing ingredients into pans and sweating over the time they have left on the clock”.

This is one of her favourite types of drama, because “there’s so much that can go wrong with a cake. And yet, the bakers on your Masterchefs, Bake-Offs and Just Desserts are all so passionate about everything they do”.

Watching these shows, Méabh started wondering why people cared so much about baking competitions.

“Is it that food is fundamental? Or is it that we can all understand the need to create something beautiful, even if it only lasts a few minutes? Is it just because we all love the taste of sugar?”

She wasn’t sure what the answer was – and she still isn’t.

“But when Carrie Quinn wandered into my head, I knew one thing: she cared so much. For her, baking was everything, because it started as a way of taking care of someone she loved. Carrie came along fully formed. She was a champion baker, just waiting to be discovered.

“But I couldn’t help but feel like her journey to baking stardom couldn’t be straightforward.”

And so, Méabh created Dara Harte.

“From the first minute that he and Carrie began to argue with one another, I knew I had something special: a romantic comedy. And for the Nora Ephron and Jane Austen devotee that lives in my head, that was an offer too delicious to refuse.”

Now Méabh hopes her readers will enjoy following these young bakers’ journey as much as she has.

■ Any Way you Slice, published by O’Brien Press, is in paperback at €12.99. It’s also available as an ebook.