Customer Reviews
Another cracker - By: daisyrock, 03 Nov 2008 
I love Joanne Harris. There's nobody around today can spin a yarn like her. I found this to be a fantastic, gripping story, full of her usual intrigues & double bluffs. I have read other reviews on here claiming that her history is sloppy, & if that's the case, I can understand it would spoil the book for readers aware of those errors. But I'm afraid to say I just read it for was it is, & thoroughly enjoyed it. But then, I also enjoyed Coastliners, which some others have said is not their favourite. That said, Five Quarters of the Orange is still her masterpiece to me.
Inaccurate and disappointing - By: Jenny Wren, 13 Sep 2008 
I have enjoyed Joanne Harris in the past,and believed her work to be well-researched but this novel makes me wonder if I have been wrong to do so. It is quite staggeringly inaccurate. I do not mean in little details, but in whopping great big facts - for instance, she has the wrong King on the throne throughout, having the Sun King, Louis 'Dieudonne' succeed Henri IV (thus consigning Louis XIII & Richelieu to oblivion). If this seems petty, I'd just ask how we'd feel if a French novelist wrote about the First World War & made Winston Churchill Prime Minister - & how seriously we'd take anything else they said. The entire plot of this novel rests on further misunderstandings of the period - eg her concept of the popular reactions to witchcraft is approximately 100 years out of date. It is quite true young noblewomen might be made Abbesses at this time, but in name only - it was a way of raising revenue, while a 'real' Abbess did the job on the spot. The flaws in the storytelling & characterisation have been well outlined by other reviewers, so I won't repeat them here, but up until now I've at least believed this writer knew what she was talking about. I'm afraid she manifestly doesn't - & I'm shocked her editors alllowed such a sloppy piece of work to go through.
Not her best but still worth reading! - By: LindyLouMac, 29 Aug 2008 
I think this is the sixth novel I have read by Joanne Harris & it is the one I have enjoyed the least.
As with her previous novels the structure of the story is based around witchcraft & religion & a female with a dark secret in her past. This is a pattern I have noticed emerging which obviously works for her but I just hope it does not make reading future novels predictable?
The main protagonists are Juliette, LeMerle, Isabelle & Perette. Set in seventeenth century France Julieette originallly from a travelling troupe is now living in a remote abbey. She is in fact hiding from the very man who turns up at the abbey (Le Merle) masquerading as Pere Colombin de Saint-Amand. What a shock to her it was when he turned up at the Abbey with the new Reverend Mother Mere Isabelle as her mentor. Perette the innocent mute is the one that appears to be the most taken in by the sinister LeMerle as he seeks revenge.
Holy Fools was the name often given to God's innocents dwarfs & idiots that were often found travelling with theatre troupes in the C17th when this story is set. They appear in this story but it is the nuns that are the real Holy Fools this time as Le Merle manipulates them into believing Satan is amongst them.
A cleverly written story of moral angst but not especiallly to my taste, one I would not have read had it not been by one of my favourite authoresses.
Not a patch on her others - By: BM, 02 Jul 2008 It's impossible to give Joanne Harris only one star because her writing style is just beautiful. However, along with Coastliners, this is the book of hers that I've enjoyed the least. The characters felt one-dimensional & caricaturish, the plot felt forced & there was reallly not much to like in the book. Don't let it put you off if you're reading her books in sequence (Gentlemen & Players is far far better) but don't rush out to read it either.
Nice, easy read - By: A. Furse, 25 May 2008 Not at alll the sort of book I'd usuallly pick up, but I read this on a recommendation & found that after I got into it I couldn't put it down - I ended up polishing it off in a day. The fact that it was set in the 1610s would usuallly have put me off, but I found that I could suspend my disbelief after the first few chapters, primarily because of the fascinating way Harris drew the characters: they were complex & subtlely written, & reminded me of people I have known.
Despite my prejudice, I also thought that the differing perspectives worked well, as the narrative flits between two of the main characters. I don't usuallly like this technique as I find that too many authors do it just for the sake of it, but here it reallly added to the tension of plot, which kept me guessing right to the end.
Most impressive was that even though I should have seen certain things coming - one of the thematic strands is foresight & a lot is hinted at before it is revealed - I was reallly gripped by the plot & what was going to happen next. A cracking read.
