Joanne Harris writes fiction that engages every one of the senses: reviewers called Chocolat "delectable" and Five Quarters of the Orange "sweet and powerful." In her new novel, she takes readers to a tiny French island where you can almost taste the salt on your lips.
The island, called Le Devin, is shaped somewhat like a sleeping woman. At her head is the village of Les Salants, while the more prosperous village of La Houssinière lies at her feet. You could walk between the towns in an hour, but they could not feel further apart, for between them lie years of animosity. The townspeople of Les Salants say that if you kiss the feet of their patron saint and spit three times, something you've lost will come back to you. And so Madeleine, who grew up on the island, returns after an absence of ten years spent in Paris. She is haunted by this place, and has never been able to feel at home anywhere else.
But when she arrives, she will find that her father -- who once built fishing boats that fueled the town's livelihood -- has become even more silent than ever, withdrawing almost completely into an interior world. And his decline seems reflected in the town itself, for when the only beach in Les Salants washed away, all tourism drifted back to La Houssinière.
Madeleine herself has been adrift for a long time, yet almost against her will she soon finds herself united with the village's other lost souls is a struggle for survival and salvation.

Coastliners: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

HARRIS, Joanne

Literary

William Morrow

Five Quarters Of The Orange - 1st Edition/1st Printing

The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet -- a novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story.
When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous Mirabelle Dartigen -- the woman they still hold responsible for a terrible tragedy that, look place during the German occupation decades before. Althrough Framboise hopes for a new beginning. She quickly discovers that past and present are inextricably intertwined. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than in the scrap book of recipes site has inherited from her dead mother.
With this book, Framboise re-creates her mother's dishes, which she serves in her small creperie. And yet as she studies the scrapbook -- searching for clues to unlock the contradiction between her mother's sensuous love of food and often cruel demeanor -- she begins to recognize a deeper meaning behind Mirabelle's cryptic scribbles. Whithin the journal's tattered pages lies the key to what actually transpired the summer Framboise was nine years old.
Rich and dark. Fire Quarters of the Orange is a novel of mothers and daughters of the past and the present, of resisting, and succumbling, and an extraordinary work by a masterful writer.

Five Quarters of the Orange

Contemporary

Coastliners

HarperAudio

With her internationally bestselling novels Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange, and Coastliners, Joanne Harris has woven intoxicating spells that celebrate the sensuous while exposing the passion, secrets, and folly beneath the surface of rustic village life. In Holy Fools, her most ambitious and accomplished novel to date, she transports us back to a time of intrigue and turmoil, of deception and masquerade.
In the year 1605, a young widow, pregnant and alone, seeks sanctuary at the small Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer on the island of Noirs Moustiers off the Brittany coast. After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste. But the peace she has found in re-mote isolation is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother.
When a new abbess -- the daughter of a corrupt noble family elevated by the murder of King Henri IV -- arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone. With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well. For the newcomer is Guy LeMerle, a charlatan and seducer now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other.
Soeur Auguste has a secret. Once she was l'Ailée, "The Winged One," star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity. But now the past has found her. Before long, thanks to LeMerle, suspicion and debauchery are breeding like a plague within the convent's walls -- fueled by dark rumors of witchcraft, part of the false priest's brilliantly orchestrated scheme of revenge. To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

Holy Fools: A Novel

Genre Fiction

Joanne Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat, presents her most accomplished novel yet - an intoxicating concoction that blends theology and reason, deception and masquerade, with a dash of whimsical humor and a soupçon of sensuality. Britanny, 1610. Juliette, a one-time actress and rope dancer, is forced to seek refuge among the sisters of the abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. Reinventing herself as Soeur Auguste, Juliette makes a new life for herself and her young daughter, Fleur. But when the kindly abbess dies, Juliette's comfortable existence begins to unravel. The abbey's new leader is the daughter of a corrupt noble family, and she arrives with a ghost from Juliette's past - Guy LeMerle, a man she has every reason to fear and hate. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Holy Fools

William Morrow Paperbacks

Audere, agere, auferre. To dare, to strive, to conquer.For generations, privileged young men have attended St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric Classics teacher who has been a fixture there for more than thirty years. But this year the wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork, and information technology are beginning to overshadow St. Oswald's tradition, and Straitley is finally, and reluctantly, contemplating retirement. He is joined this term by five new faculty members, including one who -- unbeknownst to Straitley and everyone else -- holds intimate and dangerous knowledge of St. Oswald's ways and secrets. Harboring dark ties to the school's past, this young teacher has arrived with one terrible goal: to destroy St. Oswald's.
As the new term gets under way, a number of incidents befall students and faculty alike. Beginning as small annoyances -- a lost pen, a misplaced coffee mug -- they are initially overlooked. But as the incidents escalate in both number and consequence, it soon becomes apparent that a darker undercurrent is stirring within the school. With St. Oswald's unraveling, only Straitley stands in the way of its ruin. The veteran teacher faces a formidable opponent, however -- a master player with a bitter grudge and a strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final move, a secret game with very real, very deadly consequences.
A harrowing tale of cat and mouse, this riveting, hypnotically atmospheric novel showcases New York Times bestselling author Joanne Harris's astonishing storytelling talent as never before.

Gentlemen and Players: A Novel

The New York Times bestselling author takes a riveting new direction with this richly textured, multi-layered novel of friendship, murder, revenge, and class conflict set in an upper-crust English school―as enthralling and haunting as Ian McKewan’s Atonement and Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley Audere, agere, auferre.
To dare, to strive, to conquer.
For generations, elite young men have attended St. Oswald’s School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric classics teacher who has been a revered fixture for more than 30 years. But this year, things are different. Suits, paperwork, and Information Technology rule the world, and Straitley is reluctantly contemplating retirement. He is joined in this, his 99th, term by five new faculty members, including one who―unknown to Straitley and everyone else―holds intimate and dangerous knowledge of St. Ozzie’s ways and secrets, it’s comforts and conceits. Harboring dark ties to the school’s past, this young teacher has arrived with one terrible goal: Destroy St. Oswald’s. 
 As the new term gets underway, a number of incidents befall students and faculty alike. Beginning as small annoyances―a lost pen, a misplaced coffee mug―they soon escalate to the life threatening. With the school unraveling, only Straitley stands in the way of St. Ozzie’s ruin. But the old man faces a formidable opponent―a master player with a strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final move.
 A harrowing tale of cat and mouse told in alternating voices, this riveting, hypnotically atmospheric novel showcases Joanne Harris’s astonishing storytelling talent as never before.

Gentlemen and Players: A Novel (P.S.)

It's not surprising that Joanne Harris's novels -- Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, and Five Quarters of the Orange -- celebrate the pleasure and magic of food, since her fondest childhood memories are of making pancakes with her great-grandmother Mémée, picking blackberries with her grandfather in Yorkshire, and exploring the early morning markets of Noirmoutier. Now, with coauthor Fran Warde, Harris shares her treasured collection of family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation in this illustrated cookbook.
Harris encourages cooks to engage all their senses when cooking -- look at what you're cooking, smell the ingredients, mix them with your fingers, and enjoy their sounds and textures. Cooking, she reminds us, is about as close to magic as modern society allows: to take a handful of simple, fresh ingredients and turn them into something wonderful, otherworldly.
The 120 recipes include French classics such as Onion Soup and Onion Tart, Coq au Vin, and Crème Brûlée, as well as family favorites like Anouchka's Chile Garlic Bread, great-aunt Simone's Marinated Tuna, and great-aunt Marinette's Slow Fudge Sauce. And, of course, there's an entire chapter devoted to chocolate -- cakes, meringues, and spiced hot chocolate.
My French Kitchen, a remarkable collaboration between Joanne Harris, a writer who loves food, and Fran Warde, a former chef who loves to write about food, belongs in your kitchen.

My French Kitchen: A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Warde, Fran.

Regional & International

William Morrow Cookbooks

In the year 1605, a young, pregnant widow seeks sanctuary at the Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. After the birth of her daughter, she takes up the veil, and a new name, Soeur Auguste. But the peace she has found is shattered five years later by the events that follow the death of her kind benefactress, the Reverend Mother.When a new abbess arrives at Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, she does not arrive alone. With her is her personal confessor and spiritual guide, Père Colombin, a man Soeur Auguste knows all too well. The newcomer is Guy LeMerle, now masquerading as a priest, and the one man she fears more than any other.Soeur Auguste has a secret. Once she was l'Ailée, star performer of a troupe led by LeMerle, before betrayal forced her to change her identity.But now the past has found her. To protect herself and her beloved child, l'Ailée will have to perform one last act of dazzling daring more audacious than any she has previously attempted.

Novelist Joanne Harris has received widespread critical acclaim as the creator of richly evocative tales that vividly bring to life the world, rituals, and cuisine of rural France. Now the bestselling author of Holy Fools and Chocolat widens her horizons with Jigs &amp; Reels -- her first ever collection of short stories.
Each of the twenty-two tales in this enchanting collection is a surprise and a delight, melding the poignant and the possible with the outrageous, the magical, and, sometimes, the eerily haunting. Wolf men, dolphin women, aging monsters, defiant old ladies, suicidal lottery winners, suburban witches, and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear -- in Jigs &amp; Reels where the miraculous goes hand in hand with the mundane, the sour with the sweet, and the beautiful, the grotesque, the seductive, and the disturbing are never more than one step away.
Whether she's exploring the myth of beauty, the pain of infidelity, or the wonder of late-life romance, Joanne Harris once again proves herself a master of the storyteller's trade. An incomparable reading experience awaits anyone who willingly surrenders to the spins and leaps of Jigs &amp; Reels.
Take your partners, please ...

Jigs & Reels: Stories

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HARRIS, Joanne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by HARRIS, Joanne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by HARRIS, Joanne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Coastliners: A Novel

Five Quarters of the Orange

Coastliners: A Novel

Holy Fools: A Novel

Holy Fools

Gentlemen and Players: A Novel

Gentlemen and Players: A Novel (P.S.)

My French Kitchen: A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes

Holy Fools: A Novel

Jigs & Reels: Stories