Escape to Italy with this sumptuous story of secrets and friendships under Mediterranean skies.

A recipe for life should be a simple thing: love and happiness, family, friends and a little food. But life is rarely straightforward...

Alice wants to make the most of life - after all, she knows how fragile it can be - and knows she never feels more alive than when she's cooking.

Babetta has spent a lifetime tending the garden of her tiny house on the Italian coast, supplying food to feed a family now grown and gone.

One summer these two women are brought together in a crumbling Mediterranean villa, with the shared language of food. There, under the heat of the Italian sun, or the shade of the pomegranate tree, secrets will be spoken, fears and hopes shared. But life's lessons are not learnt easily.

Read by Jane McDowell

(p) 2015 Orion Publishing Group