Is Marian made for success?

Marian Keyes is an accountant and lives with her husband in Gospel Oak. The world has yet to hear of her but this may change before the year is out.

Marian has been shortlisted, along with five other new writers, for the fourth W.H. Smith Fresh Talent initiative, a showcase for emerging authors, which is run from February 15 to March 15.

Watermelon is Marian's entry, an irresistible tongue-in-cheek poke at the trials and tribulations of relationships and all the emotional baggage that goes with them.

The book is an untapped warehouse of rich ideas and surrealism that no other female writer of this genre has found the key to.

This is no sex and shopping melodrama and you can guarantee Marian won't be in the dock defending her work in years to come.

Originally from southern Ireland, Marian has retained much of the quirky humour and robust independence of the people in that area and it shows in her work.

Influences on Marian range from Jilly Cooper to Mills and Boon but without doubt her greatest debt lies with the Irish surrealist writer Flann O'Brien, responsible for The Third Policeman, The Poor Mouth and a few more besides.

Although Marian won't go far as saying she is like the book's heroine Claire, they both certainly share the same emotional strength that has seen them survive the bad times.

Two years ago Marian was battling with alcoholism and her life was going nowhere.

The transformation has been remarkable even by her own standards as she sits comfortably poised, readily completing her second novel, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married.

Watermelon by Marian Keyes is published by Poolbeg at £5.99.

"Some of the feelings in this book are autobiographical," said Marian.

"While the circumstances are pure fiction, the feelings I wrote about - loss, rejection, humiliation, helplessness, falling in love, laughter - are feelings that are familiar to me and lots of women at some stage in their lives."

"I wanted to write a book that would appeal to women of all ages with a slightly wicked sense of fun and a love of romance."

"Having read so many books that had unrealistic situations and unrealistic characters." "I have tried to be honest," she said.

"I have walked through the fear," she said, and having achieved that, would like nothing better than to see the word 'writer' appear after her name.