A mid-summer fairy tale

Love In Idleness by Amanda Craig (Abacus, £6.99)

A group of friends and relations take a villa holiday together in Tuscany. The surroundings are divine but the guests are scratchy with each other, irritable with their partners and exasperated by the three children, who immediately go native and hog the swimming pool. Sexual tension and rivalry are in the air.

So far, so familiar. Craig now shifts a gear so that, in a re-working of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the children assume the role of the fairies whose magic love potion causes the adults to fall in love with the right people and surrender to the enchantment of the place.

This playful romantic comedy, featuring the endearing hack Ivo Sponge from Craig's much darker novel A Vicious Circle, is saved from silliness by an artful literary device and will no doubt delight many readers beside the pool this summer.