The truth cookies

The Truth Cookie is the first of the Lulu Baker trilogy, written by Fiona Dunbar, who also wrote The Silk Sister Trilogy and Toonhead.
Plot
Lulu Baker detests her Dad's new partner, Varaminta Le Bone, an ex-model, along with her son, Torquil, and her dog Poochie. She has suspicions of Varaminta using her Dad to get media attention and her thoughts are confirmed when she overhears Varaminta and her friend Waxia talking about using the wedding ceremony to promote her failing diet book, How to be as Thin as Me. Later, there are other incidents that make Lulu want to get rid of Varaminta even more.
On her 13th birthday, Lulu gets invited to a beauty salon by Varaminta, where she is disgusted by the waxing and wires there. She runs away from the salon and takes a bus. When she gets off, due to the attention of her wet hair, she finds a book store, where the 'books find people', not the other way round. At the time, it was looked after by a small man called Mister O and Lulu is annoyed with him when he doesn't help her pick up the books from a large pile that she had accidently knocked down.
She suddenly finds a book which might have been addressed to Lulu herself. It is called The Apple Star and it is a cookbook for solving real life problems. At first, Lulu isn't convinced that the recipes in the pages work, partly because the recipes were not of the ordinary kind. But after a while, she uses the recipe, The Truth Cookies, which makes whoever eats it tell the truth, to help her life. And from there, along with help from her best friend, Frenchy, and a vibrant woman named Cassandra, she goes of to help the poeople that she loves...
Characters
Lulu Baker- a girl who wants everything in her life to be back to the way they were before Varaminta came along. She is felt trapped after Torquil steals her 'Wodge of Stuff', a collection of photos of her Mum before she died in an motorbike accident, and is unable to tell of certain things. She finds The Apple Star in a book shop, written by Ambrosia May, and uses the Truth Cookies from it to show her Dad who Varaminta truly is.
Varaminta- a goldigger who is using Lulu's Dad after he won an article competition. She wants fame and wants her diet book, How to be as Thin as Me to be a sell out. She replaces Lulu's sitter, Aileen, for a Moldenian woman called Grodmila, who Lulu detests. She also puts her Dad on a diet and tires him out to afford the lavish lifestyle she wants. She also has an dog called Poochie, which yaps all the time and once scared Lulu from attempting to retrieve her Wodge of Stuff back from Torquil.
Torquil- the 'trickster' as Lulu's friend Frenchy refers him to. He is a boy who tricks and scams others to his own advantages. He constantly taunts Lulu on her hair and her skin and mocks her when she tries to tell her Dad who he and Varaminta really are. He is incredibly good at martial arts and uses this against Lulu sometimes in the book. One of his scams was kidnapping the neighbour's siamese cat Sushi and then 'finding' her to collect a £50 award, which later increases. Lulu discovers his plans but can't tell anyone for she is blackmailed by Torquil. Later, Lulu manages to make Torquil eat the cookies and tell about the scandal unwillingly, as well as other truths, including those about Varaminta, for she didn't eat any of the cookies due to her not being hungry at the time.
Frenchy-Lulu's best friend. Her real name is Amanda Fry but is called Frenchy at school because of her long, lanky legs. She helps Lulu succeed in making the cookies and giving them to everyone, including a time when the cookies get bought in a cake sale by a man in a white T-shirt and Frenchy managing to retrieve them before they are all consumed.
Lulu's Dad- a hard working man who falls for Varaminta after winning a contest for a 'Sweet Nothings' article. He is forced to go to places such as New York for a whole month for Varaminta and is constantly tired trying to afford Varaminta's lavish needs. Unfortunately, as well as Torquil, he also eats the Truth Cookies, which made him blurt out his confessions too.
Cassandra- a mysterious woman who Lulu meets when Lulu tracks down her home using an eygyptian heiroglyph found in The Apple Star. Without her, Lulu would not have got the ingredients for making the Truth Cookies in the first place. As well as supplying the ingredients for her, she tells Lulu and Frenchy stories about how light came round and how plants talk but people don't listen anymore. Though Lulu and Frenchy at first don't believe the myths, Cassandra says that 'in every story, there is truth'.
Source
http://www.fionadunbar.com/lulubaker/truthcookie_synopsis.htm

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