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Alan Titchmarsh, the best known gardener novelist in Britain, extends his patch with his novel, Animal Instincts. Expectedly funny and warm, Animal Instincts also has a distinct tinge of social commentary. The central figure is one Kit Lavery, who is returning to bucolic Devon, after ten enjoyable years in the Aussie Outback, so as to sort out the parlous estate of his deceased dad. It is all Kit can do not to leap on the next plane home when he meets the scarily modern women presiding over his father's penniless eco-empire: feisty Elizabeth, polemical Jess. Love, naturally, will bloom in this seemingly unpromising soil. Before it does Titchmarsh deftly sketches an engaging plot that touches on delicate countryside issues like fox hunting, conservancy and the class system, without ever getting tendentious or dull--and without losing the quintessentially pleasant and light-hearted tone. --Sean Thomas
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