Who have we here? Scottish author Kerry Hudson, whose debut novel Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma is out next week.

That's quite a book title. Is that the story, too? Sort of. It's actually about protagonist Janie Ryan's childhood of "sordid council flats, B&Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs and the dole queue".

A light and breezy summer read, then. It is sad, but it's also very funny and you can't help but fall a little in love with Janie and her dysfunctional family.

Is it autobiographical? "Semi," says Kerry, who was raised in Aberdeen council flats and B&Bs, "but my house was always filled with library books."

How did she write the book? It started as a series of short stories her mum and grandmother told her. Kerry then took a six-month sabbatical and went to Vietnam "because it was cheap", and got most of it done there.

She says: "I wanted to write about what it's like for a woman growing up in working-class Britain, and I don't shy away from that."

We say: With book two already done and book three on the way, Kerry Hudson is on a roll.

Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma is published by Chatto & Windus on 5 July, price £12.99