The Hills of Tuscany By Ferenc Mate (Flamingo, £7.99 in UK)

Another offering in the "let's escape to somewhere - anywhere" genre in which New World couple uproots and transplants to old world setting, in this case from New York to a Tuscan farmhouse. Science fiction for the middle-class middle-aged? Maybe; in any case, these two are more sympathetic than most, Mate being of Hungarian origin and his wife, Candace, a painter with Irish roots, and while there's nothing very startling about it - the inevitable hunt for a house, the inevitable local characters, and the inevitable idyllic ending are all firmly in place - he has an attractively light touch and his use of the self-deprecating put-down is, at times, quite hilarious.