Four Play
by Fiona Walker
Hodder & Stoughton, HK$208
With fox hunting banned in Britain - a ban that, although controversial, gained wide support - a fluffy romance that opens with the planning of a hunt ball seems likely to alienate a good many readers from the outset.
But with nine novels and sales of 1.5 million books since her first, French Relations, in 1993 Fiona Walker undoubtedly knows the readership for what she calls her 'racy rural novels'. And she has more sense than to openly advocate the blood sport or describe an actual hunt. The occasional character even expresses some reservations.
Nonetheless, Four Play, the latest of her Lodes Chronicles - a series set in the fictional Lode Valley and its picturesque villages in the Cotswolds, where Walker herself lives - is rooted in a world she loves: horses, riding and the social life that is part of it, plus lots of village eccentrics. 'Lust, manure, harvests, hoof-beats and heartbeats' was how she envisaged her fictional version.