Joanne Harris - Blackberry Wine

Jay Mackintosh is a 37-year-old has-been writer from London. Fourteen years have passed since his first novel, Jackapple Joe, won the Prix Goncourt. His only happiness comes from dreaming about the golden summers of his boyhood that he spent in the company of an eccentric vintner who was the inspiration of Jay's debut novel, but who one day mysteriously vanished. Under the strange effects of a bottle of Joe's '75 Special, Jay decides to purchase a derelict yet promising château in Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. There, a ghost from his past waits to confront him, and his new neighbour, the reclusive Marise - haunted, lovely and dangerous - hides a terrible secret behind her closed shutters. Between them, there seems to be a mysterious chemistry. Or could it be magic?

Comment: I got this book by Joanne Harris at my local library because it has been in my TBR list for quite some years. There was a time I devoured her books but this one wasn't one I was able to get to at the time. Since I've always liked the style of the author, I was quite glad to find it in the library and being able to borrow it.

In this book we have another special story with unique characters and even more so here because most of the story is told by a bottle of wine.

This is the story of Jay McIntosh, an author who got very famous over a book but who hasn't written anything remotely similar ever since. To pay the bills he writes silly/marketable books under a pseudonym and plays the part of the affected but misunderstood author since he can't get over his first book. Jay's life changes when he impulsively buys a house in the village where he spent some summers as a child - also the theme and inspiration for his famous book.

However, his life is a bit complicated, when he gets in the house, the propriety isn't what he remembered and he even finds another contender for the same house. 

Will Jay find the same peace of mind he used to have and, more importantly, the feelings and magic he experienced when he was a boy?

Considering the books I've read previously by Joanne Harris, I wouldn't say this is a bad one. But I think I wasn't able to enjoy this one as much as I did the others (the ones I liked best of course) and I'm not certain why for this story has pretty much all the same elements the others did (the now called magical realism which to my way of thinking means a story with weird elements not easily explained but cute to read about).

I just think too much time has passed since I was "in the zone" to better appreciate these stories. You see, unlike other authors in the genre, Joanne Harris' voice is very peculiar and there's a certain sense of anxiety around her characters' actions, while other authors usually go more towards cute and romantic (Sarah Addison Allen comes to mind at the moment). This means one should focus a lot on all the details and not only on the whole concept and I confess I wasn't as easily able to focus as I remember from my past readings.

The story is interesting and I was eager to see how Jay would cope with the sudden change in his life, from going out of a cosmopolitan city into a smaller village, what it would mean for him and, of course, if it would make him go back to the same place he was when he wrote his famous book.

In fact, my favorite part of this book was to see Jay's interactions with the people he would be meeting and connecting with. We are given the impression Jay has never really felt part of a full life while he was in London and his personality suits quieter places more, especially because we know his childhood summers in France were the best of his life.

I think an element that didn't win me over that much was the dual timelines we follow in the book. Jay's successful book was written based on his summers with Joe, an old man with a lot to tell and share and much agricultural knowledge, especially about wine making and how best to use what the earth gives us. But now Joe is gone and Jay spends a lot of his time imagining he sees him still, as a sort of ghost while still remembering his adventures and experiences as a boy.

The present day scenes I liked because this what matters the most, this is what we can now see happening. The past scenes can be informative but for me are only distracting and fill up space that could be used to better let us know the current Jay and his dealings with others.

The plot isn't always easy to appreciate because, for me, a lot of time is spent on details I don't think are that interesting. I would have liked things to be more focused on Jay and his perception of his new surroundings but we also spend a long time seeing other characters discussing things or being important players. I get it that it meant to prepare us for the end, to make us understand why Jay makes some choices and so on. But it's not always exciting to read about others or about Jay's past.

Thinking about the wholeness of this book, it isn't a bad one and several moments/scenes are well done. But the parts that complete the sum aren't always well matched and some inferences are too whimsical, even for the style of this story. 

As for the wine as a narrator, this was disappointing, and I felt it wasn't such a big deal.

The end was sweet, though, and let me dream about possible futures for the main characters.

Grade: 6/10

Joanne Harris - A Cat, A Hat and a Piece of String

'Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you'll find another story.'
 Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris's exceptional storytelling art. Sensuous, wicked, mischievous, uproarious and wry, here are tales that combine the everyday with the unexpected; wild fantasy with bittersweet reality.
 From the house where it is Christmas all year round, to a ghost who lives on a Twitter timeline; from the Congo where a young girl braves the raging rapids to earn a crust of bread, to Norse gods battling for survival in Manhattan; and a newborn baby created with sugar, spice and lashings of cake, these stories will ensnare and delight you with their variety and inventiveness.

Comment: I borrowed this book from a friend who's a great fan of the author. This book is a collection of short stories, all featuring something that inspired the author, whether a foreign trip or the current trends of social networks.

There are several short stories, but I didn't like them all. Some of them are boring and I had to struggle to understand what the purpose was and after finishing them I only felt relief, not exactly the sense of a well spent time.

According to several reviews, I believe most readers agree on which are the favorite stories. Personally, I've liked three best, for their apparent realistic beginning, the truth of what moves a human being to act like that, until something else happens and the story evolved into something more, different, unreal, but slightly disturbing.

Despite having favorites, all stories had a sort of ideal purpose, something the author wanted to make the reader think about. Nevertheless, like I said, some were more successful for me than others.

Of the stories I liked, three were my favorites for their strange elements that make one wonder.

First, "Do You Want To Reconnect?", a story about a mother whose young son died and their twitter accounts are now full of sorrowful messages. But the mother misses her son so much, one day, the automatic program sends her a message asking if she wants to reconnectt with her son's account. But if he isn't there anymore.... This story clearly highlights the need we have nowadays to be in contact with everyone, most social networks users can't seem to live without it anymore and sometimes there's a thin boundary that is crossed. I think this was an intriguing story because of the urgency in understanding if we aren't becoming too dependent on what a machine makes us feel. But from a  human POV, the pain and loss make us do things, just like her mother, seeing replies where they couldn't exist...

Second, "Dryad", a woman falls in love with a tree and leaves everything else behind. This is harder to accept, I'm sure, but I think that we all must like or love an object or something so much we could almost exchange everything to the way that thing might make us feel.  I think the story is a good example of how someone's reality might change suddenly and we want to cherish what matters to us and sometimes we can't help it, even in detriment of the human connection to other people. Still, what a thought, if we could live only for a purpose to the point of forgetting who we are and who is around us...

Third, in "Cookie", where a woman who lost a baby and her boyfriend gets even with food, and eats and gains weight but can't accept her losses and starts acting weird without any grasp of reality. She eats and believes a baby is growing inside her again and she doesn't need anything else...

This story was quite disturbing because it obviously points out two aspects of today's society which affect people, mostly women, quite heavily, the betrayal and the need to hide a food addiction. In this story, the main character has to deal with both and my take is she lost her way and her concept of what was real. She eats because she thinks she's pregnant and she even thinks she eventually gave birth to something only the ex boyfriend sees but which I think is a bed full of sweets. This story was intriguing anyway and how sad some women find comfort in food or in believing in unreal happenings to support their minds.

These three were my favorites, some others were good and then there were the boring ones. The ones I had more difficulty to get over with. However, this book is a collection of stories and I've graded according to the full content, which I did read completely.

Despite this, the author's talent is easily seen recognizable and as always the stories feature interesting, real problems and situations, but they all have a sort of twist, the author's trademark. Even the stories without any extra paranormal detail have a special thing to them.

All in all, an entertaining read, but I've had better from ms Harris.

Grade: 6/10

Joanne Harris - Peaches for Monsieur le Curé

Even before it was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, Joanne Harris’s Chocolat entranced readers with its mix of hedonism, whimsy, and, of course, chocolate. Now, at last, Chocolat’s heroine returns to the beautiful French village of Lansquenet in another, equally beguiling tale.
When Vianne Rocher receives a letter from beyond the grave, she knows she must go back to Lansquenet. But the past can be dangerous, and Vianne and her daughters find their old hometown changed in unexpected ways. Most surprising of all, her old nemesis, Francis Reynaud, desperately needs her help. Can Vianne work her magic once again?

Comment: This book wasn't on my radar but a friend is a fan of the author and let me borrow it. I decided to read it right away because it's my personal rule to read borrowed books before others, I don't like to leave the person waiting.

This is the third story set in the world of Vianne Rocher, the heroine we've met in Chocolate, a very famous book also adapted to a movie. In this third story, Vianne and her two daughters return for the summer to Lansquenet-sur-Tannes, where Vianne saw her life change. Now, 8 years after those times, things are different, especially on the cultural level, because of the Muslim community nearby. Vianne decides to pay her respects to an old friend and in the meantime she feels it's her duty to help those who need, even if it's someone like the priest that tried to make her run years before...

I have to say I'm very surprised by how good this book is. The first one I've read many years ago but it was magical at the time. The second one was a bit of a let down and I thought this would be more like a dutiful read, just to keep up with the story. What I got was a great time, a superb story, wonderful details and intakes about the Muslim community and a intriguing mystery with surprising results. I was positively surprised with this one!

I consider myself a fan of the author despite two or three of her books not being more than average for me. This one restored my faith on her writing which I thought to be almost clinically precise and very intelligent. The story is told by Vianne's and Francis' POVs so we can have a very enlarged field vision of the happenings. I thought it was a very good way to not only keep the author updated about what was happening but also to feel what changed in these two characters from the first book.
Vianne is more mature but there's still a bit of a gypsy side in her that never left. Francis seemed the biggest surprise, he was such an arrogant, prideful person in book #1 and now he's changed, he's more humane, more thoughtful and we see a side of him really different, I liked it.

The biggest part of the book is dedicated to the mystery, which revolves around a strange Muslim woman, always using a niqab, a veil that covers most her face. Apparently everyone is reluctant to trust this woman, many think her wise in her ways of behaving, others fear her and the apparent control on her brother, the attractive Karim. As Vianne and the reader learn about the community, the people living there and the traditions they meet as part of their religion and beliefs, we start to see many strange things, some disturbing, others heartfelt, and when we finally learn the truth behind the mysterious woman, I don't think anyone can stay indifferent to the cruelty of knowing how unfair life can be and how ignorance of what others must be enduring during their lives can't be described as bliss.
I have the opinion the biggest strength in the story is the comparison between religions, and although many can say the author is preaching herself to acceptance of one above the other (either way), I thin the lesson to learn here is, life could be so much easier if everyone really respected others instead f always trying to be better or more important than the others. I think this idea was quite well worked within this book.

In the end, I really liked the story, both the precise ideas and plot elements, and also the more introspective moments, like when Vianne reflected on her choices and what is happening around her. ll together made quite the well structured and solid story.
I recommend this to everyone, it's superb in my opinion. 
Grade: 9/10

Joanne Harris - The Evil Seed

When Alice Farrell is drawn to a Grantchester churchyard and reads a strange inscription on Rosemary Virginia Ashley's gravestone, she feels oddly disturbed. And when her former boyfriend Joe returns to Cambridge with his new girlfriend Ginny, Alice is repelled by the ethereal, lavender-eyed beauty - and certain of her evil. Then Alice finds an old diary in Ginny's room and reads the story of Daniel Holmes, who lived in Cambridge forty years earlier, and fell under the fatal spell of Rosemary Ashley. As the two stories intertwine, Alice's suspicions about Ginny increase - until past meets present in a terrifying climax...

Comment: This author has a certain writing style I appreciate a lot. Her stories tend to have this exotic feel, like her characters somehow seem more deep than that appear to be. I'm not sure how to explain, it's like everything is some dark secret that we're only allowed to know little by little and then it makes the whole book look more secretive than what it really is. In this story this feeling is even more obvious because this isn't a romance like the author used us to. Actually this isn't a romantic romance at all, in my opinion. This is suspense, a very suggestive one. Just to explain it better, this was the author's first book, now re-edited. The author herself said in a note how she start writing this book and how her writing evolved from this book on.
Anyway, this story is told in two voices, one in the present in another in the past. Alternatively, we see things happening in one and in another time and what it means to the central characters.
The story is a bit of a mystery about two strange young women, Rosemary in the past and Ginny in the present and how they seem to influence the men around them in a way that we can't help but want to know about and at the same time we start to hope it won't happen. I'm not ruining the story saying what they both do but let's just say there are some harsh scenes, more because of suggestion than actual description.
I have to repeat the idea, this isn't a romance. Don't expect HEA's or beautiful love wishes. The end is...well, it certainly didn't end the way I thought it would, but to the feel of the story I think it's rather appropriate. We also have two characters, Alice and Daniel, one in each time, that want to end up all the trouble Rosemary and Ginny cause and to see their fight is like watching a doomed game. I think there's always a certain sense of hope, one that doesn't go away, but still... I guess it's really a matter of reading and judge for oneself.
I liked it. It's not something I read often, genre speaking, but by this author I usually try anything, because the things I liked by her I really do, so I always try to give her a chance. Like I said I don't want to ruin anyone's reading in case you want to try the book someday so I'm sorry if what I've been saying doesn't seem to make much sense, but let's just say the author does honor the gothic novels she must have read... I recommend the book, for sure.

Blueeyed Boy - Joanne Harris

'Once there was a widow with three sons, and their names were Black, Brown and Blue. Black was the eldest; moody and aggressive. Brown was the middle child, timid and dull. But Blue was his mother's favourite. And he was a murderer.'
Blueeyedboy is the brilliant new novel from Joanne Harris: a dark and intricately plotted tale of a poisonously dysfunctional family, a blind child prodigy, and a serial murderer who is not who he seems.
Told through posts on a Web journal called badguysrock, this is a thriller that makes creative use of all the multiple personalities, disguise and mind games that are offered by playing out a life on the Internet.

Comment: Once again, the author surprised with the interesting, misterious plot. I never imagined who the vilan actually is.

I think this story is a bit confusing sometimes but that doesn't mean it doesn't grab you right away. I enjoyed reading it a lot.

Lately the books by this author are more suspense than fiction, but it's a unique voice and I don't recall anyone else writing like this, so, I'll keep reading her.