Under the Fig Tree

Holidays for Molly Prendergast usually meant accompanying her husband, Giles, to the annual conference for physics lecturers. When the conference is held in Huddersfield and a school friend invites Molly to accompany her on a two-week holiday to a Greek island, the choice is obvious. While in Greece, Molly starts a novel, Under the Fig Tree, which she finishes on her return to England. While in Huddersfield, Giles is targeted by what Molly's friends termed a 'cougar', Mariella McIlroy from Dundee. The next annual physics conference is to be held in Dundee, so Giles willingly agrees with Molly's suggestion that they should both go to Greece instead. Molly returns from their Greek idyll pregnant with twins, while Giles is asked to be a keynote speaker at the Annual Physics Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Leaving the twins in the care of their grandmother and big brother, Jaimie, Molly and Giles make the most of their free trip to see all the sights of New Mexico. They discover that Mariella has been asked to join Giles' physics department on the South Coast. On their return to England, Molly and Giles take the twins, Jaimie and Grandmother on an outing to Bournemouth, where they meet the McIlroy family locating to the South Coast. Mariella attempts to push Molly off the pier into the sea, with tragic consequences. But for whom? Zebedee is an ‘oversized', mischievous, curly, black Labrador puppy. When his mum and boy, Jammy, go to Great Grandma's 80th birthday party, Zebedee is sent to Miss Whittle; a dog minder for the night. Zebedee thinks that he is being sent away because he has been so naughty, but that is far from the truth. Mum and Jammy love him very much; so when Zebedee ‘escapes'from the dog minder, everyone worries about him and what might happen to him, out in a world he is not used to. Will they ever find him? What happens, during Zebedee's ordeal, surprises everyone.