Rose Doyle certainly has her finger on the pulse of popular Irish fiction. Her previous novel was set on a stud farm, and here - as it was inevitable that somebody would - she ventures on to a film set. A genteel-but-shabby country- house hotel is in drastic need of an injection of cash, and when an unexpected offer is made by a film company, it seems like manna from heaven but all, as is the way of things in romantic fiction, is not as it seems. Doyle has produced a charming and highly readable tale shot through with the sights and smells of an Irish summer, and featuring a largely likeable cast - baddie, naturally, excepted. I'm not convinced that the excursion to the Colombian Andes, of all places, near the end of the novel was strictly necessary; still, an entertaining yarn, and thankfully devoid of the sort of quasi-historic detail which bogs down so many Irish efforts in this genre.
