What makes this book wonderful is the fact that it is told from three different points of view, and each voice is different. My problem with the book is that it is more a sequel to Chocolat the movie than Chocolat the book. It's still a good read.

I loved this book. I enjoyed Chocolat (the prequel) but this was much more enjoyable. Not enjoyable. Scary. Enthralling. Magical!

Vianne Rocher is back but not as we know her. Now living as Yanne in montmarte peacefully but not as happy as she thought she would be in their new chocolate shop. She is laying low, the wind of change his stopped blowing and nothing unusual happens until a women with lollipop shoes arrives and things begin to change. The friendship that transpires is not maybe all it seems and the women with the lollipop shoes isn’t as friendly and helpful as she first seems to be. I loved this follow up to chocolat, the characters are well developed the sights, sounds and smells are as evocative as ever and i really cared about the characters, willing them all on and living the story with them. I just wish the chocolate shop was on my street! I can’t wait to read the next one in this series.

Took me a few chapters to figure out the characters, but once I did, I was hooked. Love how the author kept me going back and forth between liking and hating the characters as the story unfolded. And best of all, she left the possibility of another sequel???

A sequel to Chocolat

"Onto this stage comes Zozie de l’Alba, blowing into town on the Day of the Dead. Beautiful, passionate, bohemian and fabulously indifferent to convention, she befriends Anouk, moves into the shop, seduces half the neighbourhood with her effortless charm and little by little, helps Vianne regain, not only her skills, but her life" – Joanne Harris

US edition
Published under the title
The Girl with no Shadow

This one just didn't grab me. I didn't really like the characters for some reason. Kind of a disappointment.

I started out so confused, not realising that chapters where narrated by three different characters. And then I found out that this is the sequel to Chocolat - my edition only says "by the author of Chocolat" so I was a bit put out by that. So that might have influenced how I felt about the book. I only found it to be OK. I can see why some people would love it, but I just didn't.

Good grief, this book was stressful. So much tension. And I honestly don't know if I've ever encountered a more despicable and menacing villain in over three decades of reading.

It was an unexpected sort of sequel, where the main character had lost or set aside most of what made her so irresistibly charming in the first book. The setting moved from rural France to modern Paris, the antagonist was a witch rather than a priest, everything was quite different and unexpected. It was also far more magical than I was expecting, almost like a fairy-tale taking place in a modern setting. But it was a really good story, redemptive and beautiful and pulled you in all the way through. The character of preadolescent Anouk was so well-crafted and believable. It's hard to write first-person children well, and Harris did a great job. The mother-daughter tension made my heart ache just as much as the mother-daughter love did in the first book.

Can't wait to read the rest of the series!