Love in Idleness [Hardcover]

A Tuscan holiday with four couples plus children which turns into something of a nightmare but ends well. It is all planned carefully, but before the end all have swapped partners and the romantic comedy takes on a feeling of fantasy with the children inevitably involved in what is happening. It is a delightful comedy, which will enhance any summer activity. The author is a well-known journalist and broadcaster who has a wicked sense of humour and a splendid quality of observation for human foibles.

'Carefully plotted, its prose sharp, its characters nicely, sometimes mischievously, observed…both enjoyable and clever'

'Fiction at its best: sparkling, witty, readable, thought-provoking, but not taking itself too seriously. A fantastic summer read'

The Tuscan dream holiday turns into a nightmare, before a romantically satisfying - and surprising - resolution. An evocative and contemporary comedy of delights. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

When Polly and Theo Noble book the Casa Luna, near Cortona, for their summer holiday they plan a civilised Anglo-American house-party with Theo's brother Daniel, Daniel's girlfriend Ellen, and Polly's old schoolfriend Hemani in an idyllic Tuscan setting. Their children Tania and Robbie will have Hemani's son Bron to play with, and Theo's mother, Betty is expected keep her grandchildren under control by force of a personality that can curdle mayonnaise at a hundred paces. Even Ivo Sponge, the notorious journalist with whom Ellen was once entangled, should do little to spoil their pleasure. But the Casa Luna is a place where strange things happen, and anyone who lives there risks unexpected joys and sorrows. As both children and adults find it increasingly difficult to tell what is fantasy and what is reality, the tiny winged creatures who have persuaded Tania to brew a love potion start to take over . The result is that of the four couples who have begun the holiday together, all have swapped partners by the end (and one has swapped sex of partner!). This is a subtle and delectable comedy of manners about love, lies and the dangers of a strong imagination .

Love in Idleness is an update of Shakespeare's best-loved romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream. The idea for it arrived in the summer of 2001 when I took my two children, then aged six and eight, to see the play in London's Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park, and witnessed their immediate self-identification with the mischievous fairies. Their attitude to adults (especially amorous ones in films) is just like Puck's remark, "Lord what fools these mortals be!" A friend had told me about a disastrous house-party she and her family had recently taken in Italy...and the whole book arrived in a flash. It was pure pleasure to write, and I hope will also be to read.

You do not need to know A Midsummer Night's Dream very well to enjoy the novel, but those who do will notice that I have inverted the sex of a number of characters. Instead of Hermia being bullied by her father to marry a man she doesn't love, it is Daniel who is nagged by his mother, the terrifying Betty, to marry Ellen. Bottom goes off with somebody you may not expect, and when the love potion takes effect, it causes the two women of the quartet of lovers to chase after the man, not the other way about.

Readers who have enjoyed other novels will know that I carry characters over from one novel to the next. Ivo Sponge first made his appearance in A Vicious Circle, as did Hemani's sister Laili. Theo and Daniel are half-brothers to Winthrop of A Private Place, and Bron is step-brother to Cosmo and Flora Hunter of In a Dark Wood.

Amanda Craig is a well-known journalist and broadcaster. She is the author of A VICIOUS CIRCLE and IN A DARK WOOD. You can visit her website a www.amandacraig.com