Press

What the critics say

Her strongest writing yet: as tangy and sometimes bitter as Chocolat was smooth
- Independent

'Joanne Harris's rather brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is a fascinating page-turner with a compelling climax ... This is an absolutely remarkable book that deserves to be read over and over again'
- Punch

'Vastly enjoyable, utterly gripping'
- The Times

Harris indulges her love of rich and mouthwatering descriptive passages, appealing to the senses ... Thoroughly enjoyable
- Observer

'Harris presents a complicated but beautiful tale involving misfortune, mystery and intense family relations ... This intense work brims with sensuality and sensitivity'
- Publishers Weekly

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

Evocative descriptions of food and rural France are what we have come to expect from the best-selling author of Chocolat. With recipes and luscious depictions of food, this is the perfect book for a gastronome
- Eve Magazine

Harris's prose is deeply evocative - the scent of freshly baked bread, fruit and wine and oranges rises off the pages. Darker than her other novels and less sentimental, this is a wonderful book; don't miss out
- Image Magazine

'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

Rich in detail, engaging all the senses and drawing one compulsively on to the unexpected climax
- Time Out

As lyrically succulent as Chocolat and Blackberry Wine, this book probes darker corners of loss, enmity and betrayal
- P S Magazine

Hugely enjoyable
- Sunday Mirror

Vastly enjoyable, utterly gripping
- The Times

A dark, gripping tale of how smell leads to tragedy and murder. Harris's vividly sensual account of a nine-year-olds loves, loyalties and misunderstandings is a powerful and haunting story of childhood betrayal
- Good Housekeeping

Five Quarters of the Orange completes a hat-trick of food-titled tales with a riveting story about a young girl brought up in occupied France who's now an old woman harbouring a terrible secret. Harris is light-years ahead of her contemporaries. She teases you with snippets of a bigger story, gently pulling you in with her vivid descriptions of rural France until you can actually smell the oranges. Read it
- Now Magazine

Beautifully told, it's a haunting and tantalizing tale that stays with you long after turning the last page
- Mirror

The luscious prose, abounding in culinary metaphors and similes, which made Chocolat so readable, is once more in evidence ... a satisfying page-turner
- Irish Examiner

'Her strongest writing yet: as tangy and sometimes bitter as Chocolat was smooth'
- Independent

Harris is an acute observer of the lush French countryside, and her descriptions of it are a delight ... A luscious feast of a book
- Literary Review

Joanne Harris's rather brilliant Five Quarters of the Orange is a fascinating page-turner with a compelling climax ... This is an absolutely remarkable book that deserves to be read over and over again
- Punch

Harris' love affair with food and France continues. Savour it
- Family Circle

Harris evocatively balances the young Framboise's perspectives on life against grown-up truths with compelling, zestful flair
- Elle

The dreamy and almost fair-tale narrative remains undisturbed by the spectre of the Occupation, as Harris avoids moral or historical themes, to ponder on the internal and social turmoil of the protagonists ... Harris seduces her readers with culinary delights, through suggestive textures and smells which indulge the senses
- What's On In London

Harris has a gift for injecting magic into the everyday ... She is an old-fashioned writer in the finest sense, believing in a strong narrative, fully rounded characters, a complex plot, even a moral
- Daily Telegraph

Gripping ... Harris is on assured form
- The Sunday Times