Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : H

The Northern Clemency

Philip Hensher
A Cure for All Diseases

Reginald Hill
The Evil Seed

Joanne Harris
Love All

Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Lollipop Shoes (US title is The Girl With No Shadow)

Joanne Harris
The Woman in Black

Susan Hill
Runemarks

Joanne Harris
The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story

Susan Hill
The Woman in Black (Vintage Classics)

Susan Hill
Slam

Nick Hornby
The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story

Susan Hill
Chocolat

Joanne Harris

I hear our M'sieur le Curé already has it in for you ... Does he know you're a witch?
Lansquenet-sous-Tannes--"a blip on the fast road between Toulouse and Bourdeaux"--and new home to Vianne Rocher, her six-year-old daughter Anouk, and Anouk's "imaginary" rabbit, Pantoufle. They arrive "on the wind of the carnival", and, a couple of days later, Vianne opens a luxuriant chocolate shop. "La Céleste Praline" bubbles over with the most tempting of confections, topped with an irresistible selection of rich, smooth chocolate drinks. It's Lent, the shop is opposite the church (which Vianne and Anouk don't attend) it's open on Sundays and Francis Reynaud, the austere parish priest with the "measuring, feline look" is not exactly happy.
As one by one the villagers sidle into the shop to sample Vianne's concoctions, we learn of their characters and secrets, their loves and desires, their troubles and hopes. Sad, polite Guillame and his dying dog. Shoplifting, beaten Joséphine Muscat. And Armande Voizin, still vigorous and perceptive in her 80s, who can see Pantoufle, and recognises Vianne for who she really is.
But Reynaud has his power base. And when Vianne advertises a Grand Festival of Chocolate to start on Easter Sunday, it's all-out war. War between church and chocolate.
Read clearly and precisely by Samantha Bond--whose voice is almost choclatey enough for Vianne--and Gareth Armstrong -- who sounds marginally too rich for Reynaud--this is an elegant adaptation of an utterly delicious novel, the denouement of which brings a new, literal meaning to the phrase "a sticky end", and which proves, indisputably, that soft centres are best. --Lisa Gee
The Quiet Girl

Peter Hoeg
Writer's Market UK 2009
At His Mercy (Queens of Romance Collection) (Queens of Romance Collection)

Linda Howard
Gentlemen and Players

Joanne Harris
High Fidelity

Nick Hornby
The Living Dead

Stephen King, Joe Hill, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Laurell K. Hamilton, Joe R. Lansdale, Poppy Z. Brite, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Kelly Link, Susan Palwick
Five Quarters of the Orange

Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris' sensational novel Five Quarters of the Orange revolves around a recipe book, continuing the theme of culinary intrigue begun in Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. Framboise, the middle-aged narrator, begins her story in Les Laveuses, on the banks of the Loire:
When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me, the youngest, her album and a two-litre jar containing a single black Perigord truffle.
Framboise returns to the village where she grew up during wartime, and with the help of the recipes scribbled in her mother's album, opens up a small restaurant. However, she is desperate to keep her identity a secret even amongst the aged villagers with whom she played on the banks of the Loire in the years of German occupation during the Second World War. Framboise immerses herself once again in the peaceful rhythms of village life, pungently evoked by Harris's evocative prose. But slowly, reluctantly, Framboise begins to unravel the terrible wartime secret that drove her family away from the village. As she cuts between idyllic descriptions of the village and the increasingly dark memories of the war, Framboise admits:
I know, I know. You want me to get to the point. But this is at least as important as the rest, the method of telling, and the time taken to tell. It has taken me fifty-five to begin, at least let me do it in my own way.
This could be a description of Harris's prose itself, as it slowly and deliberately cuts between Framboise's fragile present and her happy childhood, destroyed by the tragic innocence of youth. Although Five Quarters of the Orange finds Harris on familiar ground to Chocolat, this is a much darker and compelling novel of childhood nostalgia and betrayal, and the need to confront the tragedies of the past before they destroy the possibilities of a happier future. --Jerry Brotton
Sleep, Pale Sister

Joanne Harris