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Summary
Summary
Carol Drinkwater's The Olive Farmtold the lyrical tale of her real-life romance with partner Michel and an abandoned Provençal olive farm that they fell in love with and bought-a double love story, recounting with wit, warmth, and alluring detail the couple's attempts to bring their dreams to life. In The Olive Season, Carol Drinkwater's much-anticipated follow-up to The Olive Farm, Carol and Michel prepare to exchange vows in, of all places, Polynesia-Michel's answer to Carol's challenging response to his marriage proposal ("Only if the ceremony is performed by the King of Tonga!") Upon their return to the south of France as husband and wife, they find there is much hope-and work-to greet them. With a farm consisting of fifty trees producing some of the world's finest olive oil, no longer is the challenge one of restoring the farm but in charting its development and growth. France's rigorous agricultural standards are responsible for some of the world's best produce but also for one of its most infuriating bureaucracies. In order to obtain the coveted AOC rating, Carol and Michel are forced to both expand their farm and to negotiate a Byzantine world of forms, officials, and inspections, including the surveying of their land by a water diviner, who, via a power akin to extrasensory perception, can point out the existence of underground water sources on their property. Further complicating matters is the fact that Carol has become pregnant with the couple's first child and has just accepted a demanding acting role. As the harvest season approaches, dramatic events, culminating in a heartbreaking miscarriage, cast shadows over the olive farm. With all the warmth and vibrancy of the Mediterranean sun, Carol Drinkwater tells her passionate, moving, and utterly uplifting story.
Author Notes
Carol Drinkwater is a critically acclaimed actress and author of the international bestseller The Olive Farm. Among her many stage and screen performances, she is probably most widely known for her portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. She divides her time between London and the south of France
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Striking a lovely balance of memoir, travelogue and olive-growing how-to, Drinkwater (The Olive Farm) delivers a richly textured account of her enviable life in southern France. She and her husband return from their wedding in Polynesia to their farm: "[P]erched halfway up the slope of the hill, our belle poque villa comes into view. Abounding in balustrade terraces, nestling among cedars and palms... overlooking the bay of Cannes towards the sun-kissed Mediterranean, there it is." The author's roots are in acting, and her dramatic flair turns mundane chores-e.g., spraying olive trees with fungicide; learning the basics of beekeeping-into colorful celebrations of nature. Some of her adventures are quite funny, such as a stuffy dinner at a British Lady's home-it's the French equivalent of a McMansion, in a housing development "where the enormously wealthy and overly paranoid can vacation with peace of mind, secure in the knowledge that armed guards and coded gates keep the rest of the south of France out of sight and at bay." Drinkwater's description of her dinner companion at that gathering-"a convivial, lobster-faced aristocrat" who makes her feel like she's "in the company of a steaming kettle"-typifies her pointed yet kindhearted sense of humor. But at the heart of these optimistic musings lies Drinkwater's desire for a child of her own (her husband has daughters from a previous marriage), and this book is heartbreakingly framed around near-fulfillment of that dream. Drinkwater succeeds in illustrating not only the graceful countryside, but the buoying power of an adopted community and a devoted spouse. Agent, Ed Victor. (May 26) Forecast: The popularity of Drinkwater's previous book creates a ready audience for this one; a $30,000 advertising campaign and author appearances will help. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A fussy, lugubrious sequel to The Olive Farm (2001), with the actress author's moods swinging madly from rapture to complaint to melancholy. The meandering, distracted course these ruminations will take is evident from the opening salvo recounting Drinkwater's wedding on one of the tiny Cook Islands in the South Pacific. Once she gets back to her ProvenÇal olive farm, the scene is all juniper and lavender and a baby on the way, with plenty of ripe prose: "The sun is rising into honeydew clouds that drift out of sight." Then she moves on to the obligatory, endless fencing with the French bureaucracy (Drinkwater and her husband are trying to get regional certification of their olive grove) and the difficulty of getting laborers to either get on with their work or get the work done correctly. ("These apiarists are an irritatingly cranky and elusive breed.") Drinkwater drops too many French words into the text only to translate them in the next breath ("Le figuier. The fig. Its botanical origins are uncertain but . . ."), giving it a clubfoot to go along with the anxious prose, which caroms off bee fossils, the origin of bamboo, dinner ingredients, and Napoleon's reputation. She conveys an impression of overactivity rather than attentiveness and doesn't get a good fix on any of her subjects. A devastating miscarriage, coupled with the news that she will likely never be able to bear children, plays against the tedious backdrop of the television show Drinkwater is shooting at the time. While she grapples with her feelings, she also tackles the story of a diviner who comes to find water for their orchard expansion, perhaps the most focused episode here, and certainly the best. Flashing fruity, then penumbral, with little surety of itself. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Having sold 3.5 million copies abroad, British author Vincenzi is finally being introduced to Americans. Protagonist Celia Lytton, the daughter of wealthy aristocrats, manages to wreak havoc in the lives of everyone around her. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
1 Getting Spliced, Polynesian-Style | p. 15 |
2 Fruits of Spring | p. 37 |
3 Silver Side of the Coast | p. 61 |
4 Our Sunny Surroundings | p. 71 |
5 Treating the Trees | p. 93 |
6 Hives of Inactivity | p. 129 |
7 A Darker Climate | p. 167 |
8 The Silence of the Sea | p. 187 |
9 Love Rediscovered | p. 215 |
10 Summer Eclipsed | p. 227 |
11 Rene's Betise | p. 255 |
12 Alternatives | p. 267 |
13 The Divinity of Nature | p. 281 |
14 Olive Finale | p. 303 |
15 200 New Possibilities | p. 327 |