With the gentle, undulating flow of many Italian or Spanish stories, The Olive Sisters also walks the well-worn path of bittersweet romance and wistful hark-back to the past that seem to be the hallmark of Mediterranean fiction.

You might think that this story might therefore be a re-hash of some trashy Italian love-story, or a carbon copy of Like Water for Chocolate. Not so. Italian and Spanish fiction is one of my favourite genres because it conjures the image of a life a world apart: the church bells chiming in the cobbled square, the rustle of the silvery olive leaves in the grove, the hub-bub of wildly gesticulating Italians ardently discoursing, or making love, or making an impassioned argument. Okay...maybe not a world apart, but you have to give the Italians marks for a style.

The story is simplicity itself, and I suppose there are some parallels to be drawn between its plot and many others. ‘Urbanite mother inherits rickety old farm of ancestors and is reluctantly drawn into a secret family history that make her face up to her heritage and her humanity’. Not very original, but many of these fictions aren’t, perhaps because they are written about everyday miracles; the everyday revelations of who we are and where we come from that we all inevitably experience, which is what make these stories so accessible.

The book made me laugh out loud in places, which is hard to make me do, though it’s hardly laugh-a-minute material. And the end made me shed a little tear, embarrassingly, on the bus, just before I reached work. I was busted by a bloke getting off. Ummm, yeah, something in my eye... cough cough. Maybe some people would find it twee, and it’s not going to win any great prizes for literature, but if you are looking for some easy reading, and a simple but touching story, then this could fill a few cosy hours in your week.

In short