The Lollipop Shoes is the second in what is now a bit of a
series by Joanne Harris. Five years have passed since Chocolat, the story of Vianne Rocher the
chocolatier who, with her six-year-old daughter, Anouk, blows into the stuffy
little village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and opens her chocolate shop at just
the wrong time – and in just the wrong place – incurring the wrath of the local
priest and pitting Church against Chocolate.
Since then, things have changed. We find Vianne in a subdued
mood, she no longer wants to blow along on the feckless breeze; she now wants
to settle down, to conform. The wind has
always dictated Vianne's every move, buffeting her from the French village to
the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne
Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie she rents courtesy of their brash, rich
landlord Thierry. She lives above the drab chocolate shop, determined to still
the wind at last and keep her daughters, Rosette soon to be four, and Anouk
(eleven and now called Annie) who has started secondary school, safe.
On the surface, life seems good; Vianne has finally found a
niche for herself. Life seems peaceful. She is accepted within the community.
She has learnt to conform; to blend in. She no longer makes her own chocolates and
now orders her stock, just like everyone else and is seemingly content to sell
the confectionary of others.
But security has a high price, and Vianne has made some
heavy sacrifices. She has given up her mother’s ways; the magic that she and
her daughters shared, her identity and even making her own chocolates – the
demands of motherhood are just too much. Most importantly, she has given up
true love – in the person of Rosette’s father, Roux – and is considering
marriage to her reassuringly conventional landlord Thierry, who promises her
financial security and a home for her children. Thierry is bemused by Vianne’s
technophobia (she doesn’t know how to use a cell phone) and her youngest
daughter, Rosette, who has yet to talk and has both physical and behavioural
problems. She also has uncanny and disturbing Accidents…. Anouk, a misfit and
loner at school and is having some trouble setting in, she hates Paris, resents
the “new” Vianne, and desperately misses the intimacy they once had together. Thierry
is besotted with the poor "widow" and wants to take this seemingly
weak clutch of females under his broad masculine wing.
The wind has stopped blowing – for a while.
But the wind will always catch you when you least expect
it…
Into their lives enters Zozie de l’Alba, on the Day of the
Dead, the woman with the lollipop shoes, to shake up their world. A free spirit
with magical powers and an appetite for other peoples’ lives, a witch and a
stealer of identities, whose methods are as likely to employ the internet as a
crystal ball to find what she needs. Unlike Vianne, Zozie developed her magical
powers without the guidance of a similarly empowered mother. She culled a
"system" from the occult books in her ineffectual mother's New Age
London bookshop. She is practical where Vianne is whimsical; greedy and
independent where Vianne is domestic and tied to her children. Beautiful,
passionate, bohemian and fabulously indifferent to convention, Zozie befriends
Anouk, moves into the shop, seduces half the neighbourhood with her effortless
charm. But Zozie is not without an agenda. Little by little her influence grows
- over Vianne, the customers, but most of all over Anouk, who sees in her an
echo of her own mother, without all the fears that inhibit her. little by little, helps Vianne regain, not
only her skills, but her life.
And as Christmas approaches and Zozie’s “help” becomes increasingly
more questionable, it becomes clear that behind the charismatic façade there
hides a cold and malevolent being, her power immense; her greed insatiable; her
ultimate goal – Possession.
Vianne was finally forced to confront both her enemy and her
fears. She is terrified that their blooming supernatural abilities will put
them in danger and set them apart from their peers. She accepts Thierry's ring.
But Zozie wants even more from her than Thierry does. It is cold-hearted Zozie
who encourages Anouk to explore the powers her mother suppresses and tempts
Vianne back into making her own irresistible chocolates.
A postcard suggests that one of Vianne’s old loves may soon
be on the scene. Vianne is battling something more insidious than just an
institution. She’s struggling with herself; her past; her guilty secrets and
small betrayals. Most of all she’s fighting her worst fears – in the face of
which we are all alone.… But will it be
Vianne or Anouk who is carried off by the wind at the end?
The book is written in three narratives, that of Zozie,
Anouk and Vianne
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