This is a second part to the famous Chocolat. I am not sure how much sense it makes if you haven't read the first book, because I have both read the book and seen the film. The film book, which is superior, I had to refrain from finishing it and starting again. At the beginning, I felt a bit confused: some chapters are told from the prespective of Yanne/Vianne, others from the point of view of Anouk/Annie, but throughout the first one it is Zozie de l'Alba (what a name and surname. There are also mentions of somebody called Framboise), which is a completely new character. She is a drifter, with her own system of magic, and lives by impersonating people whose identities she steals without remorse in a pretty efficient way, all has to be said. She wants to have a good fight against Vianne for Annie, who strongly is trying to pass off as a normal bullied person at school. She is about to become a teenager, and that terrifies her mother, who has enough in her plate with being Thierry's fiancée and the new chocolaterie, first as a badly-paid employee and then as the owner of the shop (although she has to pay rent to Thierry, a local big shot full of jealousy and comtempt)

What the author, Joanne Harris is doing in this book is adapting the magic realism literary trend to British audiences. At the same time, she is simplifying it, and like Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) has done, it puts emphasis in the pleasure of food and cooking, and also the homely slavery it represents, all day in the kitchen chained to the oven.

Released today.