VGC.Simon & Schuster,2000.First UK edition-first printing(1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2).Blue hardback(silver lettering to the spine) with Dj(watermark inside the edge of the back Dj cover,small tear,creases and nickd on the edges of the Dj cover),both in VGC.Illustrated with two b/w maps.Nice and clean pages but slightly tainted on the outer edges,two small nicks and crease on the edges of the pages,light shelf wear on the Dj cover.The book is in VGC except for the watermark inside the Dj cover.269pp.Price un-clipped.First edition. This is another paragraph Review: 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. n nLove, 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.
