The ​Lollipop Shoes

Joanne Harris - Five ​Quarters of the Orange
Beyond ​the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake - but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow named after a raspberry liqueur, plies her culinary trade at the creperie - and lets memory play strange games. Into this world comes the threat of revelation as Framboise's nephew - a profiteering Parisian - attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes she has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers of Les Laveuses. As the split blood of a tragic wartime childhood flows again, exposure beckons for Framboise, the widow with an invented past. Joanne Harris has looked behind the drawn shutters of occupied France to illuminate the pain, delight and loss of a life changed for ever by the uncertainties and betrayals of war.

Joanne Harris - Peaches ​for Monsieur le Curé
It ​isn't often you receive a letter from the dead. When Vianne Rocher receives a letter from beyond the grave, she has no choice but to follow the wind that blows her back to Lansquenet, the village in which eight years ago, she opened up a chocolate shop. But returning to her old home, Vianne is completely unprepared for what she is to find there. Women veiled in black, the scent of spices and peppermint tea - and there, on the bank of the river Tannes, facing the church, a minaret.

Joanne Harris - Runemarks
Maddy ​did not stir. Only her left hand moved, her fingers curling into the familiar shape that was Bjarkán, the rune of revelation. If it was a rat, Bjarkán would show it. It was not a rat. A wisp - just a wisp - of FaErie gold gleamed in the circle of her finger and thumb. Maddy pounced. Her strike was well timed. At once the creature began to struggle, and although Maddy couldn't see it, she could certainly feel it between her hands, kicking and twisting and trying to bite her. Then as she continued to hold it fast, the creature finally went limp; the shadow dropped away from it, and see saw it clearly. It - he - was not much bigger than a dog fox, with small, clever hands and wicked little teeth. Most of his body was covered in armour - pieces of plate, leather straps, half a mailshirt cut clumsily down to fit - and out of his brown, long-whiskered face, his eyes shone a bright, inhuman gold. He blinked at her twice. Then, without any warning, he shot away between her legs... Maddy touched the final rune. She spoke the cantrip. The Hill opened... Maddy Smith has always been an outsider. Born with a rusty-coloured rune on her hand - what the villagers call a ruinmark - she is scarred by this symbol of the old gods, a sign of magic. And everyone knows that magic is dangerous. Except for Maddy, who actually thinks it's rather fun. Until now. For suddenly her friend One-Eye, a rascally Outlander, wants her to open Red Horse Hill and descend into World Below - a world filled with goblins and far worse - to retrieve a relic of the old gods... Full of trickery, magic and the enchantment of the Norse myths, Runemarks is an epic fantasy adventure - richly inventive and superbly imaginative.

Joanne Harris - Holy ​Fools
Joanne ​Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat, presents her most accomplished novel yet — an intoxicating concoction that blends theology and reason, deception and masquerade, with a dash of whimsical humor and a soupçon of sensuality. Britanny, 1610. Juliette, a one-time actress and rope dancer, is forced to seek refuge among the sisters of the abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. Reinventing herself as Soeur Auguste,Juliette makes a new life for herself and her young daughter, Fleur. But when the kindly abbess dies, Juliette's comfortable existence begins to unravel. The abbey's new leader is the daughter of a corrupt noble family, and she arrives with a ghost from Juliette's past — Guy LeMerle, a man she has every reason to fear and hate.

Joanne Harris - The ​Evil Seed
Something ​inside me remembers and will not forget... When Alice Farrell is drawn to Grantchester churchyard and reads the strange inscription on Rosemary Virginia Ashley's gravestone, she feels oddly disturbed. And when former boyfriend Joe returns to Cambridge with his new girlfriend Ginny, Alice is repelled by the ethereal, lavender-eyed beauty - and is certain of her evil. Then Alice finds an old diary in Ginny's room and reads the story of Daniel Holmes, who lived in Cambridge forty years earlier, and fell under the fatal spell of Rosemary Ashley. As the two stories intertwine, Alice's suspicions about Ginny increase - until the past meets present in a terrifying climax...

Joanne Harris - Blueeyedboy
...dark ​psychological thriller set in the world of the internet, where no-one is quite what they seem to be, and every taste is catered for, even the ones to which we dare not confess.

Joanne Harris - Coastliners
Mado ​has been adrift for too long. After ten years in Paris, she returns to the small island of Le Devin, the home that has haunted her since she left. Le Devin is shaped somewhat like a sleeping woman. At her head is the village of Les Salants, while its more prosperous rival, La Houssinière, lies at her feet. Yet even though you can walk from one to the other in an hour, they are worlds apart. And now Mado is back in Les Salants hoping to reconcile with her estranged father. But what she doesn't realize is that it is not only her father whose trust she must regain

Joanne Harris - Runelight
Two ​girls. With new runes. And the End of the World is coming. Again. Six hundred miles apart, two girls each bear on their skin a runemark: a symbol of the Old Days when the known Worlds were ruled by the gods from their sky citadel, Asgard. Now Asgard lies in ruins, and the power of the gods has long since been destroyed. Or so everyone thinks. But nothing is lost for ever, and the gods haven't given up yet (nor stopped squabbling!) and they want the power of the runes borne by Maddy and Maggie - these new runes, which carry huge potential, their runelight shining out as a portent to the future. Soon both girls are swept into a maelstrom of cataclysmic events that are to draw them closer and closer to each other, and nearer and nearer to a horrific struggle where each must prove where their loyalty lies . . . Filled with inventive and humorous detail, trickery and treachery, carnage and lunacy, Runelight is the second title - following Runemarks - in a series of gloriously imaginative and dramatic tales about the Norse gods.

Joanne Harris - Sleep, ​Pale Sister
Sleep, ​Pale Sister, a powerful, atmospheric and blackly gothic evocation of Victorian artistic life, was originally published before Joanne Harris achieved worldwide recognition with Chocolat. Henry Chester, a domineering and puritanical Victorian artist, is in search of the perfect model. In nine-year-old Effie he finds her. Ten years later, lovely, childlike and sedated, Effie seems the ideal wife. But something inside her is about to awaken. Drawn into a dangerous underworld of prostitution, murder and blackmail, she must finally plan her revenge.

Joanne Harris - Jigs ​& Reels
Take ​your partners, please. Suburban witches, defiant old ladies, ageing monsters, suicidal Lottery winners, wolf men, dolphin women and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear: in these twenty-two short stories from the author of Holy Fools and Five Quarters of the Orange, the miraculous goes hand-in-hand with the mundane, the sour with the sweet, and the beautiful, the grotesque, the seductive and the disturbing are never more than one step away. Jigs & Reels is Joanne Harris’s first collection of short stories. As she says in her foreword, a good short story can startle, ignite, and illuminate…giving you vivid, anarchic glimpses into different worlds, different people. Here, she proves she is as good as her word by creating an eclectic selection of tales for our times that will delight, surprise, entertain and horrify in equal measure. Sly, funny, sometimes provocative but always personal, Jigs & Reels shows a side to Joanne Harris you have never seen before. So go on, be tempted. After all, it's only dancing.

Joanne Harris - Partvidékiek
Bretagne ​egyik kis szigetén mintha megállt volna az idő. A táj és a tenger gyönyörű, ám a közösséget mélyben fortyogó indulatok és régi sérelmek osztják meg: a sziget két településének lakói, a jómódú Le Houssiniere-iek és az elszegényedett Les Salants-iak hosszú ideje engesztelhetetlen ellenségek. Nem csoda, hogy a művész Madeleine, azaz Mado annak idején a nagyvárosba menekült. Tíz év után azonban visszatér az apjához, és döbbenten látja, hogy a gátlástalan vállalkozó, Brismand meg akarja szerezni a salantsiak földjeit, hogy terjeszkedhessen. Mado harcba száll, hogy az utolsó pillanatban megmentse szülőfaluját. Megpróbálja felrázni az embereket, ám a babonás falusiak gyanakvása legyőzhetetlen. Ráadásul Madónak szembe kell néznie a múlt tragédiáival és egy rettenetes titokkal is, amely az apját kísérti. Egyetlen szövetségese a vonzó, titokzatos idegen, az angol Flynn, aki már egy ideje a szigeten él.

Joanne Harris - Chocolat
When ​an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as the ultimate sin. Suddenly Vianne's shop-cum-café means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne's plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair?

Joanne Harris - Blackberry ​Wine
Everyday ​magic, he called it - the transformation of base matter into the stuff of dreams, layman's alchemy. Jay Mackintosh is trapped by memory in the old familiar landscapes of his childhood, more enticing than the present, and to which he longs to return. A bottle of home-brewed wine left to him by a long-vanished friend seems to provide both the key to an old mystery and a doorway into another world. As the unusual properties of the strange brew take effect, Jay escapes to a derelict farmhouse in the French village of Lansquenet, where a ghost from the past waits to confront him, and the reclusive Marise - haunted, lovely and dangerous - hides a terrible secret behind her closed shutters. Between them, a mysterious chemistry. Or could it be magic?

Yann Martel - Life ​of Pi
After ​the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific.The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16-year-old Indian boy.The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years. Yann Martel's Life of Pi is a transformative novel, a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will, as one character puts it, make you believe in God.

J. K. Rowling - The ​Casual Vacancy
When ​Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early 40s, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils... Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

Joanne Harris - A ​Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String
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 on a Twitter timeline; from the Congo where a young girl braves the raging rapids to earn a crust of bread, to Norse gods battling for survival in Manhattan; and a newborn baby created with sugar, spice and lashings of cake, these stories will ensnare and delight you with their variety and inventiveness.

Jane Austen - Pride ​and Prejudice
The ​Collector's Library in Colour takes the favourite illustrated titles of The Collector's Library and presents them in full colour. Jane Austen's best-loved novel is a memorable story about the inaccuracy of first impressions, about the power of reason, and above all about the strange dynamics of human relationships and emotions. Here, where Hugh Thomson's delightful period illustrations were originally black-and-white, they have been sensitively coloured by Barbara Frith, one of Britain 's most accomplished colourists. A tour de force of wit and sparkling dialogue, Pride and Prejudice shows how the headstrong Elizabeth Bennett and the aristocratic Mr Darcy must have their pride humbled and their prejudices dissolved before they can acknowledge their love for each other." With an Afterword by Henry Hitchings.

Ken Follett - A ​katedrális
A ​világszerte népszerű Ken Follett legsikeresebb regénye. A cselekmény a középkorban, a XII. századi Angliában játszódik. A könyv oldalain középkori világ kel életre, mely színes, mint egy festmény, és mozgalmas, mint egy jó film. Olvasása közben belemerülünk a háború borzalmaiba, átélhetjük a zsarnokok önkényeskedéseit, a hideg kőpadlókon zajló forró ölelkezéseket, kínzást, gyilkosságot és a szerzetesi élet keserveit. A cselekmény egy katedrális építése körül bonyolódik, melyért Benedek-rendi szerezetesek küzdenek szinte az egész világgal és még saját, féltékeny egyházukkal is. Mindez egy polgárháború közepén; körülöttük vér, ármány és szerelem.

Frances Hodgson Burnett - The ​Secret Garden
This ​timeless classic is a poignant tale of Mary, a lonely orphaned girl sent to a Yorkshire mansion at the edge of a vast lonely moor. At first, she is frightened by this gloomy place until she meets a local boy, Dickon, who's earned the trust of the moor's wild animals, the invalid Colin, an unhappy boy terrified of life, and a mysterious, abandoned garden...

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender ​is the Night
To ​the French Riviera come Dick and Nicole Diver. Handsome, rich and glamorous, their dinners are legendary, their atmosphere magnetic. But something is wrong - Nicole has a secret and Dick a weakness. Together they head towards the rocks on which their lives crash - and only one of them really survives. Fitzgerald worked on seventeen versions of this novel, the obsessions of which consumed his marriage and his life.