Joanne Harris is an Anglo-French author, whose books include fourteen novels, two cookbooks and many short stories. Her first novel, The Evil Seed, was published in 1989, with only limited success. Sleep, Pale Sister is her second novel. In 1999 her third novel, Chocolat, a darkly magical modern folk-tale, thematically based on food and set in the Gers region of France, reached No. 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller list. The book won the Creative Freedom Award in 1999 and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. Since Chocolat, all of Harris's books have been UK bestsellers. Her wide-ranging choice of subject matter means that her work often defies categorization, and she has a predilection for difficult or challenging issues. In Chocolat, the story takes place in a small town named Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. It is told by the two protagonists: Vianne Rocke and Francis Reynaud. The first one is a woman who stopped in the town with her daughter Anouk. They travel all around the world, not staying anywhere for a long time. The second protagonist is a cure in the local cathedral. Vianne, having come to the town at the Lent, starts to set up a chocolate café there. All this “fuss”, and the fact that she doesn’t go to the church brings on the hostility of the fanatically devotional cure. But the woman doesn’t pay attention to him. She has in mind to stay here for as much time, as she wants… Enjoy free online English audiobook “Chocolat”, a novel by Joanne Harris.
