Publisher's blurb for Je t'aime à La Folie (Bantam Press)

How do you find the woman of your dreams when you are nearing forty, living in the middle of nowhere and spectacularly ungifted in the art of seduction?

Three years into his solo adventure in rural France, attempting to transform himself from a soft townie into rugged peasant, Michael Wright believes he has everything he ever wanted: a ramshackle house on a scraggy hillside, several manly powertools, a cat, a grand piano and a vintage aircraft. Yet the lovelier his life becomes, the more lonely he feels. Three unfufilled wishes from his childhood begin to haunt him. He wants to grow one - just one - perfect potato. He wants to know, first-hand, how it feels to fly a Spitfire. And, more than anything, he wants to meet his soulmate.

Written with the same honesty, self-deprecating wit and life-affirming passion as his bestselling C'est La Folie, Michael Wright's heart-warming new book reveals how, while his sheep and chickens are bent on reproduction, a solitary man can learn to accept being single...

Or so he thinks, until a magic alligator, a bumptious American labrador and the perils of landing a light aircraft conspire to offer a glimpse of a romance that promises to turn his whole world upside-down.

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Publisher's blurb for C'est La Folie (Bantam Press)

One day in late summer, Michael Wright gave up his comfortable South London existence and, with only his long-suffering cat for company, set out to begin a new life. His destination was La Folie, a dilapidated fifteenth-century farmhouse in need of love and renovation in the heart of rural France...     

Inspired by the success of his much-loved Daily Telegraph column about La Folie, C'est La Folie is his winningly honest account of his struggle to fulfil a childhood dream and become a Real Man; to make the journey from chattering townie to rugged, solitary paysan. In chronicling his attempts at tending animals, befriending locals, finding a dishy copine and coming to terms with living Abroad Alone, the author gradually discovers what it takes to be a man at the beginning of the twenty-first century, especially if on is short-sighted, flat-footed and not much good at games.  Life-affirming and laugh-out-loud funny, Michael Wright's tale of a new-found life in France with a cat, a piano and an aeroplane is as much an elegy for a world that's fast disappearing as a hymn to the simple pleasure of being alive.