The Olive Season : Amour, A New Life, and Olives, Too . . . !

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 isUpon 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. The celebrated author of The Olive Farm once again proves to be "a storyteller of great economy and deftness" in this memoir of life in the South of France ( The Daily Telegraph ). A critically acclaimed actress and star of the BBC series All Things Great and Small , Carol Drinkwater embarked on a life-changing adventure when she bought an abandoned olive farm in Provence. She wrote of transforming her new home into a thriving, working farm in her memoir The Olive Farm . Now, in The Olive Season , Carol is pregnant and their ever-loyal gardener is leaving to oversee the marriage of his son. Often unassisted, and with new challenges to face, Carol takes on the bulk of the farm work alone. Water is, as ever, a costly problem, and she goes in search of a diviner who promises almost magical results. But, as the harvest season approaches, dramatic events cast dark shadows of their olive farm Continuing her story begun in The olive farm, the author tells of her marriage to Michel in Polynesia, and of their challenges and adventures upon returning to their olive farm in the south of France