The Girl with No Shadow: A Novel (Chocolat Book 2)

This was a great sequel to Chocolat with enough new material to make it interesting. I would recommend it to holiday readers. The only issue I had was that as I have seen the movie Chocolate Johnnie Depp is not a read head!

This story was too eery and wrapped in the occult. I finished it because I hoped for good to win out over evil. But I recommend you skip this one and read Peaches for Monsieur Pere, in which Vianne returns to the village of the Chocolat story to revisit old friends and solve a mystery.

The Girl with No Shadow (Harper Perennial) by Joanne Harris is a magical book. Literally. Its magic is in the form of witchery in three of the main characters. A sequel to Chocolat, the book's main character, Yanne Charbonneau has changed her name from Vianne Rocher. Her daughter now nine, also has a different name, Anouk. Added is another younger daughter, Rosette, who is possibly autistic. The little French family has been forced to leave their former home and is starting over in Paris.

Yanne continues her vocation as a maker of exquisite chocolates. It's a drab life she leads, but at least she and her daughters are safe. Her shop barely ekes out a living. If it weren't for Thierry, her staid landlord, who has provided living quarters, she wouldn't be able to care for her family.

Thierry asks Yanne to marry him and although she's not in love with him, a solid family life is tempting. But she can't bring herself to agree to marriage. Undaunted, he continues with plans to renovate one of his houses for them.

Along comes Zozie de l'Alba and we know from her first words that she is up to no good. Beautiful and charming, Zozie is an attraction to impressionable Anouk. Although for some time Anouk has realized she's different from other kids, her exposure to Zozie helps her to define her special talent. She, too, is a witch.

Zozie manages to become part of the family, turns the chocolate shop into a bright, sunny place that draws customers in droves.

Just when Yanne least expects it, Roux appears from her past. Although he doesn't know it, he is Rosette's father. Even after four years, he stirs up feelings Yanne has tried unsuccessfully to bury.

Zozie's true colors emerge. Pending danger and ruin become obvious. What tactic will she use this time to alter the lives of those who have trusted her?

If you're a chocolate lover, you'll enjoy the many descriptions of making exotic confections. Joanne Harris uses an interesting technique to spin her tale in that the story is told in three voices, all in first person. It was a bit confusing at first, but I soon noticed each of the three had a unique symbol at the beginning of a chapter.

Though my reading pleasure is normally stories with realistic plots, Harris spins an intriguing yarn. The Girl with No Shadow is a fairy tale for grown-ups. The author's knowledge of chocolate is impressive and the Paris setting extraordinary. Harris's lyrical writing style is a joy and keeps the reader engaged.

Original Quickie Review @ www;LitLoversLane.com

How I ended up between its sheets: My friend loaned me a book that turned out to be not just the 2nd, but the 3rd in author Joanne Harris’ Chocolat series. That was too much for me to take, so I bought the first two.

What stimulated me:

The continuation of Vianne’s story.
The themes: fear which leads to half lives, conformity which leads to half selves, family which is by choice not blood.
The book is not simply a Chocolat rehash, but has a completely different, darker feel. I really appreciate the risk author Joanne Harris took.
More about Vianne’s past is revealed.
Like Chocolat, the story is told in alternating voices. This time it’s Vianne, Anouk, and Zozie. I like these different perspectives.
The magic is more out there and explicit in this book rather than merely alluded to.

What turned me off (but only the teeniest bit):

Vianne’s complete and prolonged loss of vitality, colors, and sunny personality. I kept mentally slapping her upside the head and yelling, “Snap out of it!”
The locals were not as full-bodied, quirky, and likable as in Chocolat’s Lansquenet.
Would have liked Zozie’s evil to have unfolded naturally rather than knowing from book blurb her true nature.
Alternating story voices were sometimes confusing as to who was narrating.
The middle of the book dragged a bit.

Second in the Chocolat fictional series about Vianne Rocher and her little family. It’s alternate title is The Lollipop Shoes .

Yes, you must read this one before you read Peaches for Father Francis , 3.

My Take
It’s a combination lesson on identity theft and being true to yourself. Whether young or old, told from three different perspectives in first person point-of-view (POV) with different chapters for each. Annie has her say while Zozie crows and considers. When it’s Yanne’s turn, she worries and reflects.

I don’t object to the variety of voices, I do, however, object to Harris making it so difficult for us to figure out whose perspective we’re reading.

I loved the Advent house Zozie and Annie created. On the surface it was a beautiful idea while below the surface...such turbulence and desire.

The Girl With No Shadow is not a favorite of mine, partly because I read the third in this series before I read this one. I should know better. I should always check to see if an author’s book falls within a series. But I hadn’t. And knowing what happened in Peaches for Father Francis colored my knowledge of how this book would end. It took some of the suspense away.

Their history from the moment they left Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to this time in Paris is slowly revealed, as the wind tumbles and pushes them along. A journey that pushes and pokes at Vianne, influencing her to leave the magic behind, to become colorless, average people at whom no one would look askance. No one would judge or pursue.

The only pursuit became one for conformity in direct opposition to the pursuit of “secrets, small treacheries, acquisition, inquisition, thefts both petty and grandiose, lies, damn lies, prevarications, hidden depths, still waters, cloaks and daggers, secret doors, clandestine meetings, holes, and corners”, and more.

It’s Anouk’s belief that she must conform to succeed at school, this at a time when puberty is causing her to pull back and question everything while Vianne fears the evils of the world, the Black Man, the lack of security. Fears it so much she’s willing to deny herself and ignore her children.

Meanwhile Zozie arrives and upsets the caramel cart, subconsciously reminding Vianne of the old days in Lansquenet, days of joy and helping people and sharing a parallel childhood experience with Annie. Harris keeps us teetering between applause and disgust as Zozie advances and retreats in our thoughts. Temptation in bright colors and a faux understanding.

The Story
It’s who-knows—I suspect she doesn’t even remember her name—sneaking about, looking for another life to take over. Her latest? The dowdy, conservative Françoise Lavery, an English teacher at the Lycée Rousseau, who’s about to become the flamboyant, free-spirited Zozie de l’Alba.

A sly Zozie who worms her way into the hearts of the Rocher/Charbonneau family, enticing buyers, enlivening the shoppe, inciting Anouk. Anxious to learn Yanne’s secrets and take over her life.

It’s everything good and bad about life: struggling to make a living, wanting to be accepted whether it’s in the world or at school. The hope that if one arranges things just so that nothing bad will happen. The threat of the insecure to unbalance the different.

The Characters
Vianne Rocher is now Yanne Charbonneau while Anouk has become Annie, a.k.a., Nanou, but Pantoufle is still Pantoufle and Bam has joined them. Annie attends the Lycée Jules Renard and has few friends. Rosette is Vianne’s artistic four-year-old, Roux's daughter. Slow to speak, but quick to understand. Jeanne Rocher was her mother.

Roux is a river rat, traveling by boat as the wind takes him. The conservative Thierry Le Tresser is middle-aged with a son, and divorced. He owns the building that Madame Poussin’s café was in, and Vianne has excellent reason to believe that her landlord will allow her to stay.

Zozie de l’Alba is a con woman and a witch. She takes peoples’ lives, sometimes literally, all in the search for adventure and excitement. Scott McKenzie was the catalyst for Zozie’s transition.

The regulars at Le Rocher de Montmartre include:
Laurent Pinson, a tightwad who owns P’tit Pinson, a café-bar, where Zozie goes to work. Madame Hermie Pinot sells postcards and religious items. Madame Isabelle Luzeron and her peach-colored dog visit a cemetery every week. The unlikely duo: the dieting Alice and the fat, jolly Nico. Paupaul and Jean-Louis are the artists of the square while Richard and Mathurin are the Le P’tit Pinson refugees.

Annie’s schoolmates include:
Suzanne, Chantal, Lucie, Sandrine, Danielle, and Sophie form the mean girls clique. Jean-Loup Rimbault is a boy Annie likes, and he’s fascinated by cameras. Those who are targets include Claude Meunier who stutters, the fat Mathilde Chagrin, and the scarv’d Muslim girls.

Madame Marie-Louise Poussin had a small café and hired Vianne to help run it. Paul and Framboise run the crêperie in Les Laveuses. Père Leblanc is the nosy priest.

The Kindly Ones are the Furies whose prime purpose is vengeance against humans who do wrong and manifest sometimes as the Black Man, the Wicked Witch, the Pied Piper, the Winter Queen, or Mictecacihuatl.

Sylviane Caillou was 18 months old when she was kidnapped, and her mother Madame Michèle Caillou has been so lonely for so long.

The Cover
The background and scrollwork of the cover makes me think of the Parisian chocolatier with its soft royal blue and gold and pink art deco scrolling. The central motif is the square with its focus on Parisian buildings with the shops on the ground floor. In particular, one white building with a red roof and its lines all askew.

The title is from a cautionary tale, warning you not to make a bad bargain, don’t become The Girl With No Shadow.

Joanne Harris reached bestseller status with her international hit novel, CHOCOLAT, first published in 1999. However, most people will be more familiar with the Oscar-nominated Lasse Hallstrom film of 2000 that featured such fine actors as Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Dame Judi Dench and Alfred Molina.

The book delved a lot deeper into the supernatural and magical presence of Vianne Rocher and her young daughter, Anouk. This subject was very lightly touched upon in the movie as Hallstrom chose to reflect more on the romantic aspects of the small French village of Lansquenet rather than giving a full explanation as to how strong the magical powers of the Rochers really were.

In THE GIRL WITH NO SHADOW, five years have passed since the events of CHOCOLAT, and Vianne and her two daughters --- Anouk (now Nanou) and Rosette --- find themselves firmly ensconced in the Montmarte district of Paris. Once again, the family is working in a Chocolaterie shop but finding success far more evasive than the magical impact their Chocolaterie had in Lansquenet. Vianne has had a track record of not staying in one place for too long, and this has begun to wear on her young daughter, Anouk. Vianne is making an attempt to play down the magical powers she and her family possess and lead a normal life in Montmarte. As a result, their chocolat sales are nothing to speak of, and Vianne has to rely on her landlord and fiancée, Thierry, to help support her family. They have also taken on the surname of Charbonneau in an effort to escape their past as the Rochers.

Things begin to change dramatically with the emergence of a young woman by the name of Zozie de l'Alba, who has befriended the Charbonneaus and eventually finds herself working in their shop. Zozie is an enigmatic personality who has grand ideas for marketing and displaying the shop, and has connected with a great many new customers who quickly become regular visitors. She also has taken a keen interest in Nanou and begins to mentor her regarding relationship issues Nanou is having in her new school. Rosette, the youngest daughter of Vianne (now going by the name of Yanne), is four years old. Though she has yet to speak a word, she has shown signs of possessing similar magical powers to both her mother and Nanou.

Zozie, however, is not what she appears to be on the surface. She is actually a witch but not a "good witch" like Yanne and Nanou. Rather, Zozie considers herself a soul-catcher who has had a history of name changes not precipitated by a need to leave an area but instead because she has taken on the names of people whose identities she has "stolen." Zozie now has her envious eyes on Yanne's life and begins to work behind the scenes to steal Nanou's affection from her mother, become the main attraction with the new customers at the Chocolaterie, and slowly destroy the engagement of Yanne and Thierry.

Throwing a major wrench in the works is the appearance of Roux (the gypsy character portrayed by Johnny Depp in Chocolat), who still carries a big torch for Vianne/Yanne and soon finds himself working for Thierry in an effort to remain close to the Charbonneaus. Unbeknownst to Roux, Vianne/Yanne has kept a large secret from him --- the fact that he is actually the father of the mute Rosette. Zozie eventually figures the secret out and shares it with Nanou/Anouk, knowing that she will spill it to Roux and cause a rift between him and Vianne/Yanne. To make matters worse, Thierry becomes rightfully jealous of Roux and begins to suspect that he and his fiancée may have been more than just friends four years earlier in Lansquenet.

The book's title, THE GIRL WITH NO SHADOW, takes itself from a story Vianne/Yanne tells early on in the book about a young man who trades his shadow for eternal life in a deal with the devil. Little did he know that trading his shadow was synonymous with giving up his own soul, and he is now doomed to an eternity of seeking out his identity. This parable is right on with the intentions and backstory of Zozie, who operates as a soulless leech with no identity of her own. Much like Tom Ripley in the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Zozie becomes a chameleon who easily slips on the skins of people she has done away with.

THE GIRL WITH NO SHADOW is much darker fare than the romantic CHOCOLAT --- but that's a good thing. The characters are very well drawn out, and the tension between all of them leads itself to a climactic battle between Vianne/Yanne and Zozie on Christmas Eve. This novel has something for almost everyone --- drama, romance, comedy, supernatural dealings, thrills --- and I highly recommend it.

Joanne Harris revisits the magic of chocolate in this sequel to her wonderful Chocolat. When we meet Vianne and Anouk again however, the magic in their lives has all but disappeared. Even the change of names - from Vianne to Yanne, and Anouk to Annie - reflect the bland life that they are trying to fit into.

But magic finds its ways: Rosette, Yanne's second daughter is imbued with magic in her very nature, and the fact that she is `different' to other children her age only makes her `Accidents' that much more potent.

The introduction of Zozie l'Alba into their lives causes the erosion of Yanne's carefully planned obscurity. Zozie, more a stealer of lives than of mere identities, has no compunction about going after what she wants. In this case, it is Anouk's very powerful abilities. She begins a careful campaign to steal Annie away from her family, using all the talents she has at her command.

Yanne has put magic so far behind her that she misses many cues about Zozie's nature and plans, allowing Annie to fall under Zozie's spell.

The very obvious differences between Roux (Yanne's old love) and Thierry, her landlord who wishes to marry her underscore the chasm between a life lived full of magic, and one which is so removed from it that it seems like just going through the motions.

I really enjoyed the intertwining of the different types of magic employed by Zozie and Vianne. As other reviewers have noted, there is a darker feel to this book and to me that gave it much more depth than Chocolat.

The Girl with No Shadow is an absolutely brilliant sequel to Chocolat.

If you also enjoyed Gentlemen and Players then you'll find this newest novel doubly delightful.

No, the novel is not Disneyesque; but then neither was "Chocolat" really.

More like the Talented Mr.Ripley takes a trip to the Twilight Zone and meets Harry Potter in Paris. :-)

What I found interesting was how the story was told from the perspective of three different characters, leaving you to guess for a few seconds at the beginning of each chapter as to who was now speaking.

The reader is also left tantalizingly guessing, even at the end, at just exactly how effective any of the "magic" really was, or was it all simply scheming and social engineering and the occasional fortutitous or not happenstance.

Joanne Harris has over the years honed and perfected her skills as a writer by producing an unbroken series of novels with an intriguing storyline and an engaging cast of characters. "The Girl with No Shadow" demonstrates convincingly that Ms. Harris continues to get better and better at her craft.

Over four years have passed since Vianne Rocher got into a local brawl over the sale of her special chocolate confections declared as contraband by the Lansquenet, France clergy during Lent (see CHOCOLAT). Tired of the sweet war, Vianne repudiated the magic part of her recipe, changed her name to Yanne Charbonneau and seeking security, accompanied by her two daughters, teenage Anouk and infant Rosette, moved to Montmartre in Paris where she opened up a more mundane chocolaterie.

However, Yanne begins to understand the curse of motherhood as she wants her children safe, but Anouk rebels. Zozie de l'Alba obtains a job at Yanne's Paris store, but soon Anouk is enchanted by the newcomer. Worried for her child, she has doubts about Zozie's intentions; Yanne returns to her past as Vianne. She needs to use her magic to keep Anouk safe and to generate a special chocolate concoction but since it is Advent season the righteous frowns on her sweet creations.

This sequel continues the adventures of everyone's favorite confectionaire (outside of perhaps Willie Wonka) who has become a die hard conformist out of fear for her daughters until forced out of fear for her oldest child to be a born again magician. The story line rotates perspective between Zozie, Yanne and Anouk while once again a major religious season is in the background causing problems for the non-conformist heroine. Readers will appreciate this strong tale with implications in today's world; the story line focuses on the problems of fighting evil when the good side gives up its moral high road behaving more malevolent based on the end justifies the mean.

Harriet Klausner

What a fantastical and engaging story this is! Ms. Harris writes like a poet, weaving words and images together to create a lovely tale of good vs. evil, magic vs. reality, friends vs. foes and the shades of grey inbetween. The relationships between Vianne, her daughters and treacherous witch Zozie de l'Alba are the focal point of this story but other interesting characters abound. Like a Cheers for Chocolate lovers, Vianne's chocolaterie draws folks in to while away time and reveal their secret hearts. But is it the chocolate that is so good, or is there a darker force at work?
Zozie and Anouk's friendship rings chillingly true. What budding pre-teen wouldn't cherish her very own adult friend and hang on her every word? I won't reveal any of the plot but will say that I was pleased to see Pantoufle again. Ms. Harris describes Anouk's little friend in a most unique way; especially moving is Pantoufle's appearance during a showdown between the witches. Another magic animal is introduced as well: baby Rosette's little friend and I won't say what he is. I thoroughly enjoyed these charming creatures.
In Zozie, the author has created a complex and truly frightening sort of witch. She is utterly charming of course, albeit practically soulless, and the most colorful of all the characters in the book. I hope it is not too much to hope for a continuation of the stories of Vianne, Roux, Anouk and Rosette (and Pantoufle!)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and will now try to read everything Joanne Harris has written. Delightful!

Yanne and her two daughters, 11 year old Annie and 4 year old Rosette, are renting a Chocolaterie, a shop which sells chocolates and sweet confections to tourists in Montmarte, an old section of Paris. Yanne is being courted by the owner of the premises, Thierry, a stolid, unimaginative man who is worthy but too conventional for Yanne and the girls. Rosette has never developed in body or intellect but seems to possess strange powers which unsettle Thierry who tries to dominate them all. One day a mysterious stranger, Zozie, comes into their lives, making herself indispensable to Yanne in the shop and befriending Annie who is being bullied mercilessly at school. Zozie is able to discern the marks of a mystic power around Annie and urges her to use her abilities to get revenge. Yanne has been at great pains to make herself and her girls "normal" and to suppress any signs of otherworldliness for their own safety. When Zozie coaxes Yanne to resume her old trade of chocolate making, business increases to a huge degree and they are at last accepted by the neighbours as true Parisians. This is a fascinating story, combining the occult and the art of making scrumptious chocolates and I would seriously advise any reader not to read this book on an empty stomach as the descriptions become so real that one can almost smell the delicious morsels and be driven to scrounging for ANYTHING with chocolate in or on it.

Think of free spirit Vianne personified in the film version of "Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)" by the lovely Juliette Binoche blowing into a small French village on the north wind, tempering the richest, darkest bittersweet chocolate, fashioning it into truffles rolled into powdered balls infused with her special brand of domestic magic and the sole intent of changing people's lives. Remember her daughter, Anouk, with the part phantom-familiar Pantoufle trailing at her heels desiring only a permanent home like any other child. Add to the mix four-year-old Rosette, a special child who doesn't speak, but perpetrates "accidents" that cannot be explained or ignored and change the venue from Lansquenet, the Midi hill town's chocolaterie to the urban "village" chocolate shop located on the butte of Montemartre crowned by the white marbled Sacre Coeur de Paris. In "The Girl With No Shadow,"(UK edition, "The Lollipop Shoes") novelist Joanne Harris whips up another batch of pure enchantment, this time bringing her white "witch" protagonist's special skills out of the closet while pitting her against a red-shoed force much darker than the "kindly" but bothersome convention and respectability of Lansquenet's traditional religious contingency.

The questionable Zozie could pass for the old Vianne with her bohemian attitude, bon-bon colored costumes and her uncanny ability to tantalize the Parisian shoppe's clientele with their "favorite" confection. Impressed with the latent supernatural talent possessed but untried by now preteen Anouk, Zozie intends to manipulate Vianne's lapse into conformity to her own advantage by mimicking Vianne's own gentle yet paranormal methods of persuasion. In the ultimate play on identity theft, Zozie attempts to steal a few lives while interrupting the shaky existence that Vianne has molded to solidify the impression of stability established for the benefit of her two irrepressible children and buttressed by the presence of a boring but stalwart fiancé. The delicate balance tips over a confused and emotionally charged edge when the rakish redheaded Roux reappears with his riverboat and his practical but moody gypsy desires causing Vianne's past to careen into a future that oscillates with a frightening yet comfortably recognizable uncertainty.

This cunning battle of wits shines like the glossiest couverture; Harris's alternating three person narrative keeps the reader turning the pages while divining the speaker with the same delightful impetuosity and impulsiveness that nonsensically urges even the most fastidious dieter to eat one chocolate after another from a naughty beribboned gold-leafed ballontine. With an adept panache worthy of a ganache fashioned by Pierre Hermé, Harris assembles the usual cast of secondary eccentrics that adds bitter to the sweet, keeping the chocolatier cash register stuffed with euros and the atmosphere redolent with both requited and unrequited hopes and dreams. Zoxie's ample allusions to Aztec gods and goddesses as she flicks off a cantrip and Vianne's constant consultation of the tarot cards adds the necessary off-kilter authenticity that Harris utilizes in all of her culinary fairy tales.

Bottom Line? "The Girl With No Shadow" entertains as only a Joanne Harris novel can. Interjecting magic with the everyday ups and downs of an adolescent searching for self-identity, a mother seeking peace and security while sacrificing her own desires and an opportunist willing to destroy for destruction's sake alone, this "Chocolat" sequel offers a different take on the usual good versus evil fable that is built upon the foundation of Harris's other books, weaving in already explored places, characters and a magical heredity that here reaches a thoroughly enjoyable crescendo. Recommended not only as the sequel to "Chocolat", but as a good story with a moving, albeit somewhat over swollen plot line in its own right.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

Think of free spirit Vianne personified in the film version of "Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)" by the lovely Juliette Binoche blowing into a small French village on the north wind, tempering the richest, darkest bittersweet chocolate, fashioning it into truffles rolled into powdered balls infused with her special brand of domestic magic and the sole intent of changing people's lives. Remember her daughter, Anouk, with the part phantom-familiar Pantoufle trailing at her heels desiring only a permanent home like any other child. Add to the mix four-year-old Rosette, a special child who doesn't speak, but perpetrates "accidents" that cannot be explained or ignored and change the venue from Lansquenet, the Midi hill town's chocolaterie to the urban "village" chocolate shop located on the butte of Montemartre crowned by the white marbled Sacre Coeur de Paris. In "The Girl With No Shadow,"(UK edition, "The Lollipop Shoes") novelist Joanne Harris whips up another batch of pure enchantment, this time bringing her white "witch" protagonist's special skills out of the closet while pitting her against a red-shoed force much darker than the "kindly" but bothersome convention and respectability of Lansquenet's traditional religious contingency.

The questionable Zozie could pass for the old Vianne with her bohemian attitude, bon-bon colored costumes and her uncanny ability to tantalize the Parisian shoppe's clientele with their "favorite" confection. Impressed with the latent supernatural talent possessed but untried by now preteen Anouk, Zozie intends to manipulate Vianne's lapse into conformity to her own advantage by mimicking Vianne's own gentle yet paranormal methods of persuasion. In the ultimate play on identity theft, Zozie attempts to steal a few lives while interrupting the shaky existence that Vianne has molded to solidify the impression of stability established for the benefit of her two irrepressible children and buttressed by the presence of a boring but stalwart fiancé. The delicate balance tips over a confused and emotionally charged edge when the rakish redheaded Roux reappears with his riverboat and his practical but moody gypsy desires causing Vianne's past to careen into a future that oscillates with a frightening yet comfortably recognizable uncertainty.

This cunning battle of wits shines like the glossiest couverture; Harris's alternating three person narrative keeps the reader turning the pages while divining the speaker with the same delightful impetuosity and impulsiveness that nonsensically urges even the most fastidious dieter to eat one chocolate after another from a naughty beribboned gold-leafed ballontine. With an adept panache worthy of a ganache fashioned by Pierre Hermé, Harris assembles the usual cast of secondary eccentrics that adds bitter to the sweet, keeping the chocolatier cash register stuffed with euros and the atmosphere redolent with both requited and unrequited hopes and dreams. Zoxie's ample allusions to Aztec gods and goddesses as she flicks off a cantrip and Vianne's constant consultation of the tarot cards adds the necessary off-kilter authenticity that Harris utilizes in all of her culinary fairy tales.

Bottom Line? "The Girl With No Shadow" entertains as only a Joanne Harris novel can. Interjecting magic with the everyday ups and downs of an adolescent searching for self-identity, a mother seeking peace and security while sacrificing her own desires and an opportunist willing to destroy for destruction's sake alone, this "Chocolat" sequel offers a different take on the usual good versus evil fable that is built upon the foundation of Harris's other books, weaving in already explored places, characters and a magical heredity that here reaches a thoroughly enjoyable crescendo. Recommended not only as the sequel to "Chocolat", but as a good story with a moving, albeit somewhat over swollen plot line in its own right.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

Joanne Harris's Girl With No Shadow comes a decade after the original novel Chocolat, later made into a feature film (Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series))starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Chocolat revolved around the culinary magic of Vianne Rocher, an unorthodox chocolatiere who includes a sprinkle of magic that shakes up the local conservative villagers. In Girl With No Shadow, Vianne, now renamed Yanne Charbonneau, has relocated to Paris after fleeing several other bad situations. She has shunned her magical tendencies, putting away the tarot cards and forbidding incantations by Anouk (renamed Annie), thereby trading her individuality for a stable life at the side of Thierry Le Tresset, wealthy (and stuffy) bachelor.

The novel is told from the (confusing) viewpoint of three different characters: Vianne, Anouk, and Zozie de l'Alba in a narrow timeframe ranging from October 31 to December 24. At times, the three are commenting on events happening on the same day. Vianne's past literally comes back to haunt her in the form of the mysterious Zozie, and the young Anouk is sliding into perilous teenage rebellion, hanging out in cemeteries and engaging in forbidden acts of magic.

The cast of characters is too large to be explored in detail, and even the appearance of an old friend from the original novel is lost in the fray. Having three narrators fails to solidify the action, and it took me a few chapters to clue in that different characters were narrating (the images at the top of the chapters are different for each character). Flashbacks were to actions not covered in the original novel, and the frequent time travel left me confused at the all-too-important omissions of pivotal earlier events such as the birth of Vianne's second child, Rosette, who at four is non-verbal and quite possibly autistic.

Although the descriptions of chocolates are mouthwatering, too often the action felt staged, stale, and not in the magical spirit of the original novel Chocolat. Make no mistake: this is no sweet Chocolat Part Deux; it's dark, gritty, and haunting, wrapped in dark secrets, past injustices, and the desire for revenge that consumes several characters at various points. It's definitely not a feel-good book, although if you enjoyed Vianne's character, you may enjoy The Girl With No Shadow. It's most definitely a reinvention of classic fairy tales for grown-ups.

Bravo Ms. Harris. Although not necessarily what people might agree is a "true" sequel to Chocolat, it was just as daring and on the very edge of what makes "fairy tales" real. If you have ever listened to Clarissa Pinkola Estes, you will particularly enjoy the element of "storytelling" within the pages of The Girl with No Shadow that deems this book one to be read aloud. There is wonderful cadence in the way each character narrates.
I love that Vianne and Anouk have lost themselves (as mothers and daughters do). You must reach deep inside the pages to find Vianne and Anouk, to imagine what they endured. The element of magic is different this time, dark and tempting, like bittersweet chocolate.
I could not put the book down. I could hear all of the voices within the pages as if they were speaking to me, telling the tale.

Well, this was selected for my book club. Out of seven of us in the club, only one person finished reading the book.....and it wasn't me I found it slow and dense. I quit after 150 or so pages. It don't like to struggle with a book. I am not interested in reading anything else by this author.

While in France last week I discovered The Lollipop Shoes in a book store and read the first two lines on the back cover. Not only was I hooked, I couldn't get the euros out of my pocket fast enough. This is the sequel to Chocolat (one of my favorite novels) and picks up four years after the last story ends. While it is told in the first person from 3 different people I did not find it difficult to decide who was speaking. It is part of the charm of the story.

Joanne Harris has a true knack for narrating the yin and yang in life. She did an amazing job in Chocolat and continues to do so in Lollipop Shoes. Her characters are wonderfully developed and very realistic. I do recommend reading Chocolat first if you want the background of the main characters going into this novel. My interest was held from the first page to the last.

When Ms. Harris uses food in the titles of her books, you are in for a feast. Bon appetit!

I love way Joanne Harris paints her books - you can smell, taste, hear, see what the characters do. It's so atmospheric, "try me, taste me". The 3 different points of view that this book shares with it's readers gives such a full description of what's going on - and how the characters feel about it. It is a darker, richer confection than Chocolat - for a more grownup taste. I highly recommend this and pray that when they make the movie they keep the same actors and add Angelina Jolie as Zozie!!!

Joanne Harris is my current "flavour of the month". I have read a number of her books in short succession and savoured each of them. She has a knack for bringing the magical into the ordinary. With her quirky characters, mouthwatering descriptions and enchanting story-telling abilities, I cannot help but be drawn into her words. This story, and of course its predecessor "Chocolat" reminded me somewhat of my favourite movie - "Amelie". A lovely read to warm the soul and tantalise the tastebuds!

Having enjoyed all the previous novels that I've read by this author, I hoped for more than The Lollipop Shoes delivered. In particular, I found the references to characters from The Five Quarters Of The Orange to be a rather cheap and shabby vanity, namedropping for fans of her earlier works.

The three voices telling the story didn't differ enough to make them immediately recognisable, meaning I often wasn't sure who was telling the current part of the story. The changes in Vianne's personality seemed strange to me, out of character and the reasons given for the changes in her didn't satisfy me. Roux's relationship with Josephine, blossoming at the end of Chocolat, was completely ignored in this volume and I found that disappointing too.

I would still recommend it to fans of Joanne Harris. I wonder if her style has changed, or if I have changed... I think it's time to go back and re-read some of her earlier works and see if they still charm me. The Lollipop Shoes is not a bad book, but it's not my favourite among her works.

I was enchanted by this sequel to 'Chocolat'and I would love to see a movie made out of this novel as well. I didn't want the book to end (as with all good books)and was thrilled at the ending and loved all the surprises the book had to offer. Do not pass this book up but definitely read 'Chocolat' first or you will miss too much. I thought the book was wonderful and if you love the mystical and the magical, you will enjoy the book as much as I did.

Nancy in Tacoma, WA : This story was many things. There was puzzlement as the character's point of view, but 'voice' remained unchanged, with each chapter. I was charmed as magic encouraged positive and lovely changes in Vianne and Anouk's lives. Impending doom as the cimax built. Then a sudden (and slightly too pat) ending to it all.
For all of that, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel.

Joanne Harris's sequel to her sly, clever novel, Chocolat, finds Vianne and her two daughters living in Paris four years after the wind blew them out of the village of Lansquenet. Gone is the magic that enriched their lives and transformed the village, and that is fine by Vianne. Now calling herself Yanne, she only wants her family to be normal and safe, and on the surface, it seems to be. Anouk is now a pre-teen with an early adolescent's normal angst. Her younger sister, Rosette, appears intelligent enough even if she can't talk. And Yanne herself is soon to be engaged to her staid bourgeois landlord. Life couldn't be more ordinary, until the fateful wind blows into their lives a mysterious and exotic woman who seems to know all about "Yanne" and her family. Soon Vianne faces an adversary who threatens everything she holds dear and whose skills are as great as her own.

Although it's a sequel to Chocolat, The Girl With No Shadow is not Chocolat II. It is a darker, grittier story of mothers and daughters, love and loss. Although readers may expect the same Disneyesque charm of the first novel, this contemporary fairy-tale is more in the vein of the Brothers Grimm. My only quibble is I missed the zest of earlier Vianne during most of the story. The villain was a much more compelling creation. Nevertheless, fans who want to follow the characters from Chocolat will enjoy this book.

While I enjoyed Joanne Harris' sequel to Chocolat -- The Girl with No Shadow -- my one complaint was the reappearance of Roux and the relationship between him and Vianne. In Chocolat, their relationship was basically a one-night stand that Armand foresaw before her death, as well as the child it would produce. Vianne said that while it was a beautiful experience, she did not love him. At the end of the book, he was happily living with Josephine.

But then in The Girl with No Shadow, Vianne, now Yanne, is in love with him and there is no mention at all of Josephine. It almost seemed to me like the relationship between Vianne and Roux in the sequel, was informed by their relationship in the movie version of Chocolat, and not the actual book.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the themes of good witch vs. bad witch and the power of a mother's love.

Joanne Harris is known for her witty and intelligent stories. Girl with no Shadow is not a continuation of Chocolat. It's been four years and the characters have grown, changed sense we last read. Vianne Rocher is gone, and so are the clothes, shoes, and spirit of Chocolats lead. Instead her and Anouk now try to conform to their new town, until Zozie enters their life with some plans of her own. Through the twists and turns of this mysterious read characters face cosmic dangers as the powers of witchcraft and chocolate are challenged. Along with the addition of a new group of delightful chocolaterie regulars is the return of some well loved characters from the first book. 'Shadow' is a second helping that is definitly dark, but Harris serves up one sweet ending that makes it go down smooth!

Initially i found the first few chapters confusing because there is no warning that the novel is written from 3 different perspectives. However once I understood the writing style I really enjoyed the depth it added to the novel. Harris uses this format so elegantly to weave an intricate tale about family, society, identy, being true to yourself and of course chocolate and magic. Great read for the holiday season. Hard to put down and easy to resume when you pick it back up.

Joanne Harris has really pulled it off. I usually don't like sequels but I read this one anyway and I'm soooooo glad I did. I liked The Girl With No Shadow even better than Chocolat; and that is really saying something because I loved the original novel. Bravo to Ms. Harris!

Joanne Harris gives the reader a delightful romp through the streets of Paris in "A Girl with No Shadow." It is a flight of fantasy sequel to her beloved "Chocolat." The story is told by three characters in the novel, each with her own unique voice. With twists and turns in the plot such as stolen identities, lost and found love and decisions to make, the story moves along like a good read should.
The reader is hungry for confections throughout and is treated to a smorgasbord of literary gems.

It was just exhausting. I paraphrase for my own experience what another reviewer said, "I was 300 pages in and decided I'd invested so much time in the book that I was going to have to finish it..."

It was a dizzying concoction of three different vantage points, not enough depth and all cantrips and colors and wind. She could have taken one character's perspective, stayed there and spent the same amount of ink and killed the same number of trees with a more developed plot line.

It did nothing for me and I couldn't wait until it did get to its utterly unsatisfying and predictable ending. Tragically, the ending sort of hints to another sequel that that I say (and I've never said this): "No More Chocolat(e)!! It makes you sick!"

Borrow it from the library.... don't spend your money on this one.

also known as THE LOLLIPOP SHOES, a zingier title but dull dull dull. wouldn't one think a master battle between a black witch and a white witch, with the white witch's whole life as the prize, would be inherently interesting?? mais non! three alleged viewpoints but all the same voice; no real story, no real follow-through, no real characters, no real events, just recipes. even facts get lost (eg, what happened to the hallucinogens in the party food, huh?). looks like it's time for JH to fake her own death and move to hawaii.

What a great follow-up to Chocolat!
I absolutely loved it - made me sad that I finished it so quickly, because I wanted to keep reading.

Fantastic writing, great story, and characters that keep you guessing.

I simply could not get interested in this book, despite being unable to put down the original Chocolat book. I do not recognize Vianne here; it's almost as if the author gave her characters the same name but no other affiliations. I admit I read one-third of it and took it back to the library. Nothing moved the story forward and I was bored from the beginning.

I was so looking forward to reading this book. I loved the first book "Chocolat" and looked forward to the continuing story of the delightful characters. What I discovered is that the characters that were so delightful, were not so much with this book. I enjoyed the character development in the other characters but wish she had stuck with the characters (of Viane and Anouk) developed in the previous book. The story was ok, but I only wish it rang true to the original characters.

Loved Chocolat, and was skeptical for the continuation of the story. Joanne Harris comes through with equally interesting new characters, layering on to old characters and the lives in which they find themselves. A great read