Blackberry Wine: from Joanne Harris, the bestselling author of Chocolat, comes a tantalising, sensuous and magical novel which takes us back to the charming French village of Lansquenet

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I picked this book up on a whim, not because it was Joanne Harris, but because it had the word Wine in the title and I thought it would be a good present for Pumpjack. Jay seems to have lost inspiration and faith in the magic of life, as if all these feelings had been spent in that successful novel.

Throughout the novel you have these quirky passages that place the otherwise banal story on a simply different level. But the accidental discovery of six bottles of home-brewed wine, a legacy from an old and vanished friend, seems to hold the key to a new beginning, a means of escape, and a final reconciliation. He finally gains Marise's confidence following a crisis at her farm, and learns the terrible secret that she has been so desperate to conceal. Not really surprising, as the overall concept is about wine but also I adore that it is narrated by a bottle of wine. In Five Quarters of the Orange, this bold female character is Mirabelle Dartigen, the mother of present-day narrator Framboise Simon.His ‘specials’ (the wine bottles) remind him of his childhood stays at his grandparents’ where he explored the northern landscapes and befriended an old man who was filled with tall tales and gardening tips. The story is carefully written, with elements which seem unrelated but then become clearly woven together in a satisfying way. He seems like an intelligent person, but has the insight of a fifteen-year-old boy coupled with a dog’s manic need to defend his territory (or in this case, Jay’s righteous indignation). p>Read about how we’ll protect and use your data in our Privacy Notice.

Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion'. Jay’s garden renovation and the relationship with his neighbor and her daughter were nice, the practical peculiarities of Joe added color and interest and the French townspeople formed a nice backdrop. Joe is the reason why I'm giving this book four starts and why I loved it despite the somewhat predictable plot and undeveloped characters.It is a delightful tale of young Jay MacIntosh and the friendship he develops with Joe Cox over the course of 3 summers spent at a small village in England. She also spends too much time on Twitter; plays flute and bass guitar in a band first formed when she was 16; and works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.