Return to the Olive Farm
Released: July 2010
£ 7.99 PB 368pp
9780753826812

Return to the Olive Farm
After sixteen months of travelling round the Mediterranean in search of the ancient secrets of the olive tree, Carol returns to her beloved olive farm in the south of France, to her husband Michel and his burgeoning family. However, the homecoming celebrations are overshadowed by disturbing discoveries.
The plight of the honey bee has become an international crisis and Carol is faced with unsettling news about the hives on her own olive farm. The bee colony that has regularly wintered at Carol’s farm has been decimated while she was away, poisoned by insecticides.
While the multinational companies are pushing for ‘bigger, better, bumper’ crops, a small band of farmers and ecologists are calling for a halt to many of the modern farming malpractices that are endangering the planet. Carol is amongst them. But it puts her own farm, her idyll, under threat. At what point do you turn your back on all that you believe in and all that you have been fighting for?
This is the story of how Carol and Michel struggle with some difficult choices, and how they decide to deal with the unavoidable disappointments and inevitable responsibilities that come with running an organic farm. Return to the Olive Farm is a song of the earth. With its lyricism, humanity and humour, Return to the Olive farm is a beautifully written book that passionately confronts the issues of today; issues that impact upon each and everyone of us.
Life and love, olive groves and bee hives in Provence – further adventures in the bestselling Olive Farm series.
In my opinion this is Carol’s best book to date – THE FRENCH PAPER
… so what else makes this stand out from the rest of the heap? I think a lot of its attraction for me stems from the honesty of the writing, the attentions to detail, the intensity of the write’s relationship with the land, the willingness to take risks, the ability to deal with recalcitrant, inebriated builders with good humour and grace!! Above all you feel like you’re observing a very intimate moment in someone else’s life as they fall back in love with a place they’d left behind. – WATERSTONES
…an honest and truthful story that leaves the reader still wanting more. – FRANCE MAGAZINE
- Interview with Carol Drinkwater, author of the Olive Series The Good Life France. 0
- Daily Mail: Emotional ties with actress and author Carol Drinkwater Carol on notebooks, her obsession with olives, getting married in the Cook Islands, showbiz running in the family and her days on All Creatures Great & Small 0
- Where are they now? Actress and author Carol Drinkwater. STAGE and screen actress Carol played Helen Herriot in the popular TV series All Creatures Great And Small (1978-1985) with Robert Hardy, Christopher Timothy and Peter Davison. 0
- Writer's Forum Where I Write: Phil Barrington visits novelist Carol Drinkwater at her French olive farm 0
- 'As a young actress, I would spend everything that I'd earn on travelling…' Irish Indpendent. Louisa McBride interviews Carol Drinkwater. 0
- Interview for WAMC's The Roundtable, Northeast Public Radio USA An award-winning, nationally recognized eclectic talk program. 0
- NAW Interview with Carol Drinkwater New Asian Writing Online Asian Literary Community interviews Carol following the publication of Hotel Paradise 0
- Carol Drinkwater Lives the Good Life in France (and Writes About It Too) The Thin Reads Interview with Carol Drinkwater, Author of “Hotel Paradise” 0