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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This book has her traditional split writing style with parts set in the past and parts set in the present, the past bits very much have the magical feeling of the endless summer that you only have as a kid and you also find in some Stephen King stories like IT and Stand by me. In 2000, the book won Best Novel in both foreign and international categories at the Salon du Livre Gourmand in Périgueux, France. 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.

Lansquenet the little french village of Chocolat fame is the setting for this book too along with some characters recognized from their also. Most of the novel revolves around his re-finding his writing muse, getting the farm into some kind of shape, and getting to know the neighbours.

His big selling novel was several years earlier and he hadn’t been able to replicate that book for lack of ideas.

She represents everything that Jay most dislikes about London and the life he is leading there, and yet he finds it hard to escape from her dominant personality. If not forget, but to accept the past, their indivual secrets, and Framboise finally makes amends with her mother. However, just as Jay is about to accept that he is falling in love with Marise, his ex-girlfriend Kerry arrives in Lansquenet, having gained access to Jay's whereabouts and the first pages of his new book. Framboise, having had a tenuous relationship with her less than ideal mother (abusive, actually) all her life, she is surprised to uncover redeeming secrets written in code in a beloved cookbook that belonged to her. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet.When my grandfather died, ten years ago, I picked up a few of his remaining bottles from the pantry. When Jay sees a picture of a farmhouse in Lansquenet, France, he is reminded of Joe's dream of one day owning such a place. Fortunately I have rather more to keep me grounded in the real world than Jay – living with an eight-year-old is a terrific antidote to living in the past – and I tried not to think too much about Chocolat as I was writing, knowing that all literary successes are heavily dogged by the curse of expectation. I don't drink wine but I related absolutely to the wine in this story; to the stories it tells, to the stories it releases.