Five Quarters Of The Orange

Her strongest writing yet: as tangy and sometimes bitter as Chocolat was smooth * Independent *
Outstanding … beautifully written * Daily Mail *
Joanne Harris a naturally sensuous writer, but her latest book has a dark core…Her descriptive and narrative talents are put to a profounder use…This gripping tale is bound to be made into a film. It’s as vivid a journey through human cruelty and kindness as I’ve read this year * Daily Telegraph *
Harris indulges her love of rich and mouthwatering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses … Thoroughly enjoyable * Observer *
Just as she did in Chocolat, Harris indulges her love of rich and mouth-watering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses with seductively foreign names, and evoking the textures and smells of food. These descriptions are suffused with a child’s wide-eyed wonder that lends the story a magical quality, almost like a folk tale or a children’s story. Even having the Occupation as a backdrop, Harris sets out to tell a story that proves, like her previous books, to be thoroughly enjoyable… * Guardian *
Harris’s vividly sensual account of a nine-year-old’s loves, loyalties and misunderstandings is a powerful and haunting story of childhood betrayal * Good Housekeeping *
Joanne Harris is masterly in her conjuring of the sense of time and place in the wartime segments of the book, and with almost poetic style she brings to life the smell of country cooking, and the movement of fish in the Loire and the stifling smell of orange oil * Yorkshire Post *
The pace and balance of the book make it as enjoyable as Chocolat * France In Print *
The author of the Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat must win more plaudits for this elegant and epicurean novel permeated with the tantalizing flavours of rustic France * Publishing News *
If you enjoyed Chocolat and Blackberry Wine, you are certainly ready to embark on this journey back to war-torn France, an unresolved past and a fraught future * Oxford Times *

Joanne Harris is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of over twenty novels. Her Whitbread-shortlisted novel Chocolat was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She is the author of several other bestsellers, including The Lollipop Shoes, Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure and The Strawberry Thief. She has also written acclaimed novels in such diverse genres as fantasy based on Norse myth (Runemarks, Runelight, The Gospel of Loki), and the Malbry cycle of dark psychological thrillers (Gentlemen & Players, Blueeyedboy, and Different Class).

Born in Barnsley, of an English father and a French mother, she spent fifteen years as a teacher before (somewhat reluctantly) becoming a full-time writer. In 2013, she was awarded an MBE, and in 2022 an OBE. She lives in Yorkshire, plays bass and flute in a band first formed when she was sixteen, and works in a shed in her garden. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and served for four years as Chair of the Society of Authors. She also has a form of synaesthesia which enables her to smell colours. Red, she says, smells of chocolate.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.