Green Grass by Raffaella Barker

Lure of an old flame rekindled over the Aga

Raffaella Barker's entertaining new novel starts with a chick- or hen-lit feel and quickly moves into Posy Simmonds territory, with the odd touch of Mills & Boon. Its heroine, Laura Sale, is fortyish and negotiating a tricky mid-life repositioning of the goalposts with her long-term partner, the pretentious installation artist, Inigo. This man's persona combines elements of pampered baby, resentful teenager, and sexy hunk.

Bored silly by the art world, Laura has bumped (literally) into Guy, an old flame from her country youth, and is stricken with yearnings for rural ease after the stresses of being Inigo's helpmeet for years. The seven giant Mobius strips he suspended from Spaghetti Junction embroiled Laura in "five hundred hours of negotiations with insurance companies, crane contractors and the Highways and Byways department... It won Inigo international renown and brought Laura a very depressing crop of grey hairs."

While Inigo is in New York, Laura acts on her longings. Inigo, who does not "get" animals, returns to find himself saddled with a ferret, an insatiable goat and a black pug called Zeus, together with their various parasites, neuroses and excretions. Worse, his wife has abandoned their comfortable north London home and installed the family in a hovel/gorgeous country cottage in deepest Norfolk. He can't even get a signal for his mobile.

A town mouse/country mouse comedy ensues. Laura finds balm in the smell of a hayshed; Inigo gets hayfever the minute he crosses the Norfolk border. She wants the cosy chaos of a country kitchen, jam bubbling on the Aga; he can't wait to get back to the white and steel of his London house. This couple, it seems, has reached impasse.

While the art-world scenes are not wholly convincing and the intriguing Guy no more than a cut-out, Barker really succeeds in capturing the changing weather of the family, its shifting alliances and collusions. She doesn't take sides, or rather she argues both, vehemently, at different times. Parental tantrums are juxtaposed with the turbulent progress of Laura and Inigo's convincing and likeable 13-year-olds, Dolly and Fred. They just about steal the show and are refreshingly free of stereotype while embodying the full flavour of "baleful, leg-swinging" adolescence.

Will Laura fall for organic farmer Guy, who leaps to the rescue like the Milk Tray man? Will she leave demented Inigo, whose idea of fun is to balance a spoon on his nose? Or will she give in to his pouting wiles, the anguish of his cry: "Good God, you'll be growing hairs on your legs next!" Despite the daily irritations each inflicts upon the others and the awfulness of their car journeys, the reader comes to care very much that this family should stay together. Given that this is essentially a feelgood, holiday read, a happy ending may safely be conjectured.