This doesn't prevent her delivering snappy one-liners to her hapless man ( …Matarena tells her man to get off that sofa if he wants to help her …). I'm sure real women in Tahiti can be exasperated and worse by this modern version of traditional Pacific masculine roles, but Matarena accepts everyone's idiosyncrasies as part of the lifestyle. What I particularly enjoyed was Pito's propensity for chilling out on the sofa, taking sickies and getting drunk. Matarena's innocent comments offer plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour: …it's really funny to think about two sumos doing the sexy loving… Her affectionate indulgence provides a feel-good wrap, as the novel swings along to its satisfying, if fairly predictable, ending. Her anecdotes provide an entertaining whistle-stop tour of an island society.

Nevertheless, when Materena locates a new bed as the principle wedding gift for the imaginary wedding, she mentally scouts round her relatives for likely contributors. Indeed, when she takes us back to their courtship thirteen years ago, she admits that she persuaded Pito into that wonderfully-named 'sexy loving'. Materena really wants a wedding ring and framed certificate for her wall, but she's forced to conclude that Pito doesn't really mean to go through with a ceremony. She is jerked out of her customary contentment when her partner, Pito, suddenly proposes marriage one drunken night. Materena Mahi is mother of three, partner and daughter, with an extended family of voluble cousins, departed ancestors and the Virgin Mary Understanding Woman. But first of all, you'll need to slow down to Polynesian time, because this author has a sure touch and isn't going to be hurried in telling her tale. If you want to be anywhere but your sweaty body, a feel-good novel set in Tahiti might provide just the vehicle (a truck in these parts, not a bus) for a quick recovery. I'd recommend it as a good standby for a dose of flu – the bed-bound variety where pessimism aches in your joints. Having missed out on Frangipani and Tiare, I'm in the fortunate position of having started at the right place and I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest. It was Celestine Hitiura Vaite's first novel, but the third book in the Tahitian trilogy to be published in the UK. The Marriage Proposal was originally published widely as Breadfruit. Summary: A feel-good, funny novel about modern Tahitian life, by an islander.

Frangipani by Célestine Hitiura Vaite