'Graduating from university, Lucy Neville faces a dilemma: find a job or disappear to Latin America, the exotic land of her childhood dreams? She arrives in Mexico City with little money and only basic Spanish. Her to-do list is simple enough: get a job, find a place to live, then master the language.

'Lucy promptly finds work as an English teacher and scores a room in a sunny apartment. Her new flatmate, the well-connected Octavio, is unnervingly attractive.

'So begins a comic tsunami of challenges as Lucy negotiates Mexico City's stratified worlds, meeting everyone from street-hawkers to crazy gringos, academics and socialites. She marvels at how cheerfully they cope in a town held together by corruption, where kidnapping is a constant threat and decapitations by narcotics gangs are a staple of the daily news.

'As Lucy struggles with her Spanish verbs, the two men she accidentally falls in love with discover each other's existence. In the midst of the turmoil that follows, her extrovert family arrive for a visit. Oh Mexico! is a classic travel memoir lit up by great warmth, wit and wisdom. With a curious mind and a knowing eye, Lucy's account of life in the riotous third-world metropolis that is Mexico City is utterly irresistible.' (From the publisher's website.)