The Olive Season

Carol Drinkwater's The Olive Farm told the lyrical tale of her real-life romance with partner Michel and an abandoned Provençal olive farm that they fell in love with and bought-a double love story, recounting with wit, warmth, and alluring detail the couple's attempts to bring their dreams to life. 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 is performed by the King of Tonga!") Upon 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.