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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Anouk Rocher, Vianne's six-year-old daughter. A precocious child with an imaginary animal friend, called Pantoufle, that is also seen by her mother. She often plays near the river with the other children. This is a book about haunted lives, unfinished stories and the chance to change your own life and atone for your past mistakes. To put a stop to Kerry's machinations, Jay burns the sole manuscript of his book and, finally at peace with himself, prepares to begin a new life with Marise. Home brewed wine made by Joe takes unusual importance in the present time of the story, because it's only when Jay drinks it that he finds the courage to change what makes him unhappy. Guided by a kind of Joe's ghost, Jay leaves London and moves to a little rural village in France where he buys an abandoned farm and where he starts writing again, inspired by his mysterious neighbour, Marisa.

In 2000, the book won Best Novel in both foreign and international categories at the Salon du Livre Gourmand in Périgueux, France. From the author of Chocolat, an intoxicating fairy tale of alchemy and love where wine is the magic elixir. All these events lead to the entire city shunning the family, and following one situation too many, they flee in separate directions, barely in time escaping death by the neighbors' wrath and need to designate a scapegoat. Of course, there is also the love aspect, a childhood friend, Paul, whom she eventually lets in. Together they learn to heal. If not forget, but to accept the past, their indivual secrets, and Framboise finally makes amends with her mother. Francis Reynaud, village priest who is in his thirties. He tries to make Vianne and her daughter leave as he believes her shop is inappropriate and better suited for the cities. He comes to believe that she is Satan's helper. He is fanatical and puritanical in his beliefs, due to the inspiration of Père Michel, his predecessor, and his troubled childhood. He has a strong sense of dignity, which might be mistaken for pride sometimes, an obsession with following the rules and believes himself superior in terms of moral strength and intellect as he observes with chagrined disdain in one of his confessions.

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Josephine Muscat, the wife of Paul-Marie Muscat. At the beginning of the book she is a silent fearful figure, the result of the incessant brutal treatment received at the hand of her husband. She starts to hope after Vianne offers her friendship, and finally she leaves her husband. Vianne offers her a job and residence at her chocolaterie, arguing that if she leaves the town, she'll never stop running. Under her guidance, Josephine transforms, becoming stronger, more self-confident and charming.

As Jay settles in, he contemplates his childhood friendship with Joe, who made the Specials and whose idiosyncratic outlook on life was the inspiration for his only successful book. Jay becomes involved in village life, meeting up with some familiar characters from Chocolat. Caro and Toinette, the snooty troublemakers, make an appearance and Josephine, the bar owner and battered wife of the earlier novel, becomes a real friend. But it is a new character, the enigmatic Marise that becomes the real focus of his attention. It's the lure of her story that really changes his life, re-ignites the flare of his work. Joanne Harris's last novel, Chocolat, was both a dazzling literary success and a commercial triumph. Chocolat, the major motion picture directed by Lasse Hallström ( The Cider House Rules), is scheduled for release in December 2000 and stars Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Dame Judy Dench, Alfred Molina, and Lena Olin. Under the influence of this magical home-brew, Jay finds himself behaving in a more and more erratic way. He buys a house he has never seen in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and moves there, ostensibly to write, but in reality to escape from Kerry, the pressures of fame and the expectations of his public. Framboise falls the most for Liebwitz. By, in fact, actually falling in love with him. Which leads to the event that has remained hidden for years, decades, in the family. The event that changed each of their lives forever. When he tells young Framboise that he can no longer see her, likely ever again, she cries, imploring that this not be so. When he refuses her pleas, she desperately convinces him to swim out to a dangerous area of the lake, simply to spend more time with him. He is caught in a root underwater and drowns. The three of them, Cassis, Reinette, and Framboise, surreptitiously make the body disappear, and never discuss the incident again. Their mother, despite showing no real love for them their entire lives, covers up for them when she finds out. They never know until present day that she even knew. The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.The chocolaterie is an old dream of hers. She has an innate talent for cooking and a charming personality. She tries to fit in and help her customers. She starts to build a group of regular customers, including Armande, Guillaume and Narcisse, and, to Reynaud's dismay, she doesn't go out of business. Reynaud attempts to have Vianne run out of town, and he talks about her every Sunday at church. Some people stay away, but not for long. His conflict with her becomes his personal crusade.