A second short story collection from Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat and Peaches for Monsieur le Cure.
'Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you'll find another story.'
Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris's exceptional storytelling art. Sensuous, wicked, mischievous, uproarious and wry, here are tales that combine the everyday with the unexpected; wild fantasy with bittersweet reality.
From the house where it is Christmas all year round, to a ghost who lives...

In seventeenth-century France, against a backdrop of witch trials, regicide and religious frenzy, Juliette, one-time actress and rope-dancer, seeks refuge with her young daughter in the remote abbey of Saint Marie-de-la-Mer, and reinvents herself as Soeur Auguste.

At St Oswald's, a long-established boys' grammar school in the north of England, a new year has just begun. For the staff and boys of the school, a wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork and Information Technology rule the world; and Roy Straitley, the eccentric veteran Latin master, is finally, reluctantly contemplating retirement.

A gothic tale set in 19th-century London, by the author of 'The Evil Seed'. A domineering and puritanical artist finds, in nine-year-old Effie, the perfect model he has been seeking, and she later becomes his wife. But Effie is drawn into a dangerous underworld of vice, blackmail and murder.

Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters live peacefully above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change.

A gripping psychological thriller played out in cyberspace, from the bestselling author of Chocolat and The Lollipop Shoes.
"Once there was a widow with three sons, and their names were Black, Brown and Blue. Black was the eldest; moody and aggressive. Brown was the middle child, timid and dull. But Blue was his mother's favourite. And he was a murderer."
Blueyedboy is the brilliant new novel from Joanne Harris: a dark and intricately plotted tale of a poisonously dysfunctional family, a blind child prodigy, and a serial murderer who is not who he seems. Told through posts on...

It's never easy to face the fact that a man you once loved passionately has found the girl of his dreams, as Alice discovers when Joe introduces her to his new girlfriend Ginny. Alice soon realises that her instinctive hatred of Ginny may not just be due to jealousy as she's plunged into a nightmare world.

Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscape of his childhood, to which he longs to return. A bottle of home-brewed wine left to him by a long-vanished friend seems to provide the key to an old mystery. As the unusual properties of the strange brew take effect, Jay escapes to a derelict farmhouse in the French village.

Vianne Rocher moves to a French village and opens a chocolate boutique at the beginning of Lent The local priest is outraged and the ensuing controversy escalates into a 'church not chocolate' battle.