KEY POINTS:
It's hard to believe, a man so shy he listened to a woman's life stories for months and months, saved up the 500 pounds he thought he needed to make love to her, then got so overexcited he practically raped her.
In the hands of anyone else, this tender love story would be almost too improbable. But Louis de Bernieres turns it into an enthralling life lesson. Sliced into "his" and "her" voices that pull you through the chapters in a couple of sittings, this is the story of Christian and Roza.
Her voice is clear, young and defiant. Poor, sexy and beautiful, she is the daughter of one of Tito's partisans living on her wits in a London squat.
It is a portrait of a girl dangerously adventurous yet scarily vulnerable and driven to the edge of the gutter. We never get to know for sure if she's a hooker. His voice is older, careful - worn down by a bad marriage and constrained almost to death by that awful, English hating-to-offend.
He describes his wife as the Great White Loaf, himself as a reluctant travelling salesman in a brown Austin Allegro. Driven by lust and genuine liking, Christian treats Roza like a princess. She transports him into the world of a young woman at the height of her beauty, weaving fantasy and a marvellous history lesson along with truth to a point where no one - Christian, Roza, or the reader - can tell for sure what is real.
Some of the episodes describe affairs with former boyfriends, surely designed to tease a frustrated 40-year-old. And along the way they fall in love. Louis de Bernieres writes in fluid, compelling sentences.
Although the story is simple compared with the great sweep of, say, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it is similarly enthralling. His characters may be eccentric but they are believable.
There's a vividness that brings the story slap into the present, so you can smell the apples in the ancient Yugoslavian orchard, see how the wool of the red jumper is frayed after the horse took a bite out of it.
Most of all you can see the spellbound Christian, sitting there in the grubby flat, drinking instant coffee and having the best time he's had in a decade as he listens to this lovely girl tell him about her adventures, her exploits ... and the sex.
A fascinating read that echoes in your head long after you finish.
* Carroll du Chateau is a Herald features writer.
