It"s the stuff of dreams: a Scottish family giving up relative sanity and security to go and grow oranges for a living in a secluded valley in the mountains of the Mediterranean island of Majorca. But dreams, as everyone knows, have a nasty habit of not turning out quite as intended. Being greeted by a freak snowstorm is only the first of many surprises and "experiences," and it isn"t long before they realize that they have been sold a bit of a lemon of an orange farm by the wily previous owners. However, laughter is the best medicine when confronted with consuming a local dish of rats, the live-chicken-down-a-chimney technique of household maintenance, and attending a shotgun wedding. The colorful set of Majorcan neighbors (including an eccentric old goatherd who eats worm-ridden oranges to improve his sex life) restores the family"s faith in human nature and helps them adapt to a new and unexpectedly testing life in this deceptively simple idyll of rural Spain. Snowball Oranges is hilarious and revealing, full of life and color, set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Majorca. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 240 pages)