...abandoning the rat race for an isolated Mediterranean island to learn to fish and barter for your daily bread is one thing. Doing it as parents of a newborn baby – your first – and a dog called Tetley is a whole other kettle of fish...

Finding Nino is a story about a man, a woman, a baby and a dog who up stumps from a comfortable city life to settle on Lipari, one of the spectacularly beautiful Islands of the Winds, which float in a volcanic archipelago off Sicily.

He plans to learn to live like an islander, she to escape her worst nightmare – of becoming a suburban mother obsessed with designer prams, nannies and playdates. But abandoning all you know to make life on the other side of the world is never as easy as it looks and much harder at times than you could ever imagine. 

Relationships can be strained. People can be strange. And having time to stop and think is confronting in more ways than one. And then there’s eccentric neighbours, slithery things, ticks, and a man called Nino, who could teach Zorba – and the author – a thing or two about life.

Finding Nino is about a seachange but it’s also about love, belonging, the joys of truly getting back to nature – and learning about what really matters in life, from someone who’s seen it all.