Tash French

A summer holiday with her eccentric, infuriating family and assorted glamorous hangers-on is the last thing Tash French would usually volunteer for. But her mother is insistent and, out of a job and recently ditched by her boyfriend, Tash decides that spending July in the vast rambling Loire chateau might have its compensations. It's a summer of lust, bed-hopping, unresolved sexual tension, horses, dogs, bolshy kids and lots of bad behaviour. And in the midst of bedlam, at least two people fall in love.

When Tash French's potty grandmother mistakes a Christmas cracker engagement ring for the genuine article, a wedding of astronomical proportions is planned. Swept away by everyone's enthusiasm, Tash and her partner Niall can do little but laugh and go along with it. As the wedding plans escalate, however, Tash starts to have doubts. Niall, a rising acting star, is always working away from home, forgetting important dates and falling in love with his leading ladies, and her own eyes keep wandering to a roguish fellow event rider.