<p class="bodytext">With every book Joanne Harris publishes in the Vianne Rocher series, her readers gasp with impatience and delight. Since Chocolat (1999) — the first book in the series — Harris has delivered three more, following Vianne’s journey across France, where the winds take her. Now, in Vianne, the fifth instalment, we follow the story of what happened before everything happened!</p>.<p class="bodytext">It is July 1993. Twenty-something Sylviane Rochas has just scattered her mother’s ashes in New York. She lands in France. Pregnant and uncertain. Grief and the echoes of her mother’s voice rattle her as she makes her way to the seaside town of Marseille. On the way, she finds the name of a small French village and decides to make the name hers; here is Vianne. She finds refuge in a local bistro and begins to help out the man who runs it using his dead wife’s recipes. Soon, Vianne is around the town. She drops by at a small workshop where two men are mulling over running a chocolatier. As Vianne learns the ropes of cooking and the history of chocolates, she also realises that the Man in Black lingers and is out to get her. And that change is the only way of life.</p>.Not-so-mute witness.<p class="bodytext">Witty, delicious and heartening, Harris’ prequel to the much-loved series is a warm hug to a troubled heart and a reminder of why Vianne shall always remain precious.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The series has charted out a career of 25 years now for Harris. The first book went on to be adapted into a film starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp, and won several accolades. The Lollipop Shoes (2007) was engrossing but lacked the pleasure with which Chocolat had once charmed its readers. Peaches for Monsieur le Cure (2012) restored the love for the series once again with its sheer wit and empathy. The Strawberry Thief (2019) was equally riveting with the excitement and fervour of seeing Vianne’s life shift with motherhood. A fifth book could have been both a promise and a challenge. Like in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton series, for instance, where five books now seem too much, pulling a character for so long can seem daunting and audacious.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Nonetheless, Harris takes up the challenge and has fulfilled the promise of delivering well. It was a smart move to go back in time and remind the readers why they loved Vianne in the first place. Tracing where Vianne came from works favourably. The reader is acquainted with a Vianne who is still childless and doesn’t know yet that she could like bitter chocolate. We see a Vianne who is not only lost but is also sad and weak. For the readers, it is rare to see a character in a light they have almost never encountered in four books! It is exactly what makes Harris’ Vianne different from someone like Lucy Barton, whose grief, poverty, loneliness and anxiety we have been reminded of from the very first book.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Not only Vianne, the other characters in the book win you over with their histories. Guy and Mahmed, the pair who are working on a chocolatier, are a marvellous presence who give the story its life. Loving yet complicated in their own ways, they become a foil to someone like Louis, for whom Vianne works for at the bistro. The novel rests on the shoulders of love, sadness, and a desire to seek reunion. There is Louis, who misses his dead wife and Guy, who lies to his father. And there is Mahmed, frustrated with Guy. Not to mention Vianne herself, upsetting the equanimity in the town while dealing with the uncertainties of life once her child would be out into the world. Concerns loom as food and chocolate find their way into their lives. Connecting them as they do in real life as well. Spreading love and lessening grief by filling stomachs.</p>.<p class="bodytext">If Chocolat was the book that was evocative enough to reach for a cup of hot chocolate, this book is doubly sensuous. It is sure to swirl its readers in daydreams of sitting by a café in France with no phone; just a book, and a cup of spiced hot chocolate on a cold, rainy day.</p>.<p class="bodytext">If there is ever a sixth book to the series, one only hopes to see characters like Guy and Mahmed again in Vianne’s life. For the readers who have not read the series yet, this book is a great place to begin, as it requires no prior knowledge of Vianne. Perhaps, it could reshape how Vianne is understood as one moves from Vianne to Chocolat.</p>
<p class="bodytext">With every book Joanne Harris publishes in the Vianne Rocher series, her readers gasp with impatience and delight. Since Chocolat (1999) — the first book in the series — Harris has delivered three more, following Vianne’s journey across France, where the winds take her. Now, in Vianne, the fifth instalment, we follow the story of what happened before everything happened!</p>.<p class="bodytext">It is July 1993. Twenty-something Sylviane Rochas has just scattered her mother’s ashes in New York. She lands in France. Pregnant and uncertain. Grief and the echoes of her mother’s voice rattle her as she makes her way to the seaside town of Marseille. On the way, she finds the name of a small French village and decides to make the name hers; here is Vianne. She finds refuge in a local bistro and begins to help out the man who runs it using his dead wife’s recipes. Soon, Vianne is around the town. She drops by at a small workshop where two men are mulling over running a chocolatier. As Vianne learns the ropes of cooking and the history of chocolates, she also realises that the Man in Black lingers and is out to get her. And that change is the only way of life.</p>.Not-so-mute witness.<p class="bodytext">Witty, delicious and heartening, Harris’ prequel to the much-loved series is a warm hug to a troubled heart and a reminder of why Vianne shall always remain precious.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The series has charted out a career of 25 years now for Harris. The first book went on to be adapted into a film starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp, and won several accolades. The Lollipop Shoes (2007) was engrossing but lacked the pleasure with which Chocolat had once charmed its readers. Peaches for Monsieur le Cure (2012) restored the love for the series once again with its sheer wit and empathy. The Strawberry Thief (2019) was equally riveting with the excitement and fervour of seeing Vianne’s life shift with motherhood. A fifth book could have been both a promise and a challenge. Like in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton series, for instance, where five books now seem too much, pulling a character for so long can seem daunting and audacious.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Nonetheless, Harris takes up the challenge and has fulfilled the promise of delivering well. It was a smart move to go back in time and remind the readers why they loved Vianne in the first place. Tracing where Vianne came from works favourably. The reader is acquainted with a Vianne who is still childless and doesn’t know yet that she could like bitter chocolate. We see a Vianne who is not only lost but is also sad and weak. For the readers, it is rare to see a character in a light they have almost never encountered in four books! It is exactly what makes Harris’ Vianne different from someone like Lucy Barton, whose grief, poverty, loneliness and anxiety we have been reminded of from the very first book.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Not only Vianne, the other characters in the book win you over with their histories. Guy and Mahmed, the pair who are working on a chocolatier, are a marvellous presence who give the story its life. Loving yet complicated in their own ways, they become a foil to someone like Louis, for whom Vianne works for at the bistro. The novel rests on the shoulders of love, sadness, and a desire to seek reunion. There is Louis, who misses his dead wife and Guy, who lies to his father. And there is Mahmed, frustrated with Guy. Not to mention Vianne herself, upsetting the equanimity in the town while dealing with the uncertainties of life once her child would be out into the world. Concerns loom as food and chocolate find their way into their lives. Connecting them as they do in real life as well. Spreading love and lessening grief by filling stomachs.</p>.<p class="bodytext">If Chocolat was the book that was evocative enough to reach for a cup of hot chocolate, this book is doubly sensuous. It is sure to swirl its readers in daydreams of sitting by a café in France with no phone; just a book, and a cup of spiced hot chocolate on a cold, rainy day.</p>.<p class="bodytext">If there is ever a sixth book to the series, one only hopes to see characters like Guy and Mahmed again in Vianne’s life. For the readers who have not read the series yet, this book is a great place to begin, as it requires no prior knowledge of Vianne. Perhaps, it could reshape how Vianne is understood as one moves from Vianne to Chocolat.</p>