Rating: 
Summary: On the way back to my childhood
Review: If you liked Chocolate, then read Blackberry wine just to find out what happened to your favourite characters after Vianne had left the villige. The smell of Specials will take you back to your own childhood, you will remember the light, feelings, wishes. Very nice and inspirating reading. It says Funny on the cover, but is is more nostalgic:) Worth buying though!
Rating: 
Summary: So Close
Review: If you were also delighted by Chocolat, you may be somewhat disappointed in Joanne Harris's latest. Parts of the book were incredibly imaginative and wonderful, but I found the last portion of the book disappointing. The ending seemed hasty, nothing like the well-crafted beggining. I especially found the situation at the end with Rosa, Kerry and the grandmother to be quite unbelievable and silly. It was a fun read and had all the potential of being spectacular, but I felt it came up short.
Rating: 
Summary: Sweet sweet scent of that "Specials"
Review: In all honesty, I didnt think that this novel would come close to Chocolat(great book,great movie) but Joanne Harris has woven another superbly warm and entertaining novel that mixes nostalgia with dreams, magic with wine and a dreamy writer with a woman with a kaleidoscopic past. Every page is filled with life which is supplemented by her wonderful description of food and wine. Whereas Jay Mac had writer's block, Joanne Harris certainty didnt. For those with dreams of living in the idyllic surroundings of the French countryside, this bottle of wine is certainly worth uncorking. Feel the magic in the "Specials"
Rating:
Summary: It Stays With You
Review: It has been over two months since I read this book and I think of it alot. It has such vivid passages that I feel as though if I stumbled upon Joe's house in the real world I would recognize it in an instant. I loved the scattered attachments to Chocolat. Joanne Harris is definitely an author that I will remember and keep reading.
Rating:
Summary: Blackberry Wine
Review: Joanne Harris has created a wonderful story that isn't pretentious in the least, instead focusing on what she obviously considers the finer points in life - wine, food and the company of others. The story is fairly simple, but that is half the charm and happily the narrative flow stumbles only once, towards the end, but the mistake is rectified and I was left feeling satisfied by the turn of the last page.Jay Mackintosh is a writer famous for his first book, Jackapple Joe. Since then he has had writer's block, producing by-the-numbers pulp sci-fi under a pen name to take care of his debts and to keep him in the lifestyle he enjoys. He is widely considered to be the writer who doesn't write, his girlfriend in particular contemptuous of his choices. He receives six bottles of wine from an old friend from his childhood, and here his adventures begin. For the first half of the book, each chapter jumps between his childhood and the challenges he coped with and the friendships he made, and the present day, where he becomes progressively unsatisfied with his joyless life. He eventually buys a property in a tiny little town in France that reminds him of 'the good old days'. He begins to write again, becomes friends with the residents and rediscovers the beauty of life. And it works really well. Harris has a real gift with words, in particular when describing earthy scenes and food and drink. I felt like I should be drinking a bottle wine while reading, everything was just so rich and tangible. The childhood scenes are tinged with nostalgia and probably aren't as enjoyable as the present day events, which eventually take over the entire book anyway. The only problem was when his girlfriend visits from London to take back her man. I found this section - mercifully brief but unfortunately it hampered the conclusion - as tacked on, in a way. I understood that it was necessary for Jay to truly learn his lessons, but I didn't like it at all. For a book that had pretty much coasted along with the characters enjoying each other and their surroundings, to suddenly have this conflict mar the pace of the novel, well, it didn't work. Thankfully this section is resolved fairly quickly and we can go back to the sedated pace of before. The ending is expected, but welcome, I could see it coming a mile away, and when it did, I was satisfied. Overall, I would recommend this to someone who wants to take a relaxing wander through the vineyards of rural France. Nothing is hurried, no great life-truths are unveiled, but it never tries to do this so that can be forgiven. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A sparkling, delicious novel...
Review: Joanne Harris has done it again. After indulging myself in Chocolat, I was a little nervous about reading Blackberry Wine. So many times after a smashing debut, the sophomore effort doesn't match up. However, that wasn't the case with this one. Blackberry Wine is utterly intoxicating. Thirty-seven-year-old writer, Jay Macintosh, is stuck in the past. During his childhood, Jay spent three magical summers in rural England with retired miner and eccentric gardener, Joe Cox, a man who would become a source of inspiration for Jay. Joe, with his talismans, good luck charms and rituals, taught Jay many things, mostly about luck, magic, gardening and winemaking, before disappearing without a trace one day and impacting Jay for the rest of his life. And several years later, after the overwhelmingly success of his only novel, Jackapple Joe, Jay has found himself struggling with writer's block. On a whim, Jay purchases a small cottage in a remote village in France where he hopes to recreate those magical summers and let his imagination and creativity flow. But there are all sorts of surprises in store for Jay -- for one, a mysterious woman with a secret past that influences Jay in more ways imaginable. Blackberry Wine is a beautiful, lush piece of work. However, I couldn't fully appreciate it until I'd read the whole story -- it was too hard to decide if I liked it or not when all the pieces were unread. Now having reflected on the complete story (and after ravishing the last few chapters), I realize that Joanne Harris's touch is still magical. Blackberry Wine will seduce you little by little, and it is so worth it by novel's end.
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Summary: Worthy follow-up book to Chocolat
Review: Joanne Harris peoples her stories with characters who are more than a little fey, individuals who possess a touch of magic and who live in the realm of myth or fairy tale. In Blackberry Wine, the magical character is Joe Cox, the pivotal character of Jay, an author's, youth in a small English village. Joe had a magical cottage and garden and made wine from the fruits and berries on his squatter's land by a river, and was the main character in Jay's award-winning novel. Joe's sudden disappearance devastated Jay. When he suffers depression and writer's block, he buys, sight unseen, an 18th century chateau. Joe's bottles of wine, which he's been carting around with him for the past 2 decades, also move to the French chateau. As Jay begins drinking them, magic happens, and there's the over-riding question of, Where is Joe now, and could it be that he's that guy who...?
To say more would be to say too much.
Lovely book.
Rating:
Summary: A Clash of Burgundies
Review: Joanne Harris seems to have found her niche by adding magical elements to a story. The secret to her success is that both the story and the characters would be interesting even without the magic. In Blackberry Wine we have the main character, a writer, Jay Mackintosh (a name to suit the fruit motif), who seems to spend the entire novel finding out that he has a backbone and can stand up to someone. By the time he does it, we love the guy and do approve of the values which motivate his final choice. (I'm not going to tell you the end of the book!) But still his act seems to be a passive aggressive one based on destruction rather than really confronting Kelly, his former girlfriend. The supporting characters in the book are all outstanding. Marise d'Api is a marvelous character, masterfully written, who develops as we learn more about her. Even the flat characters who do not change such as Rosa the daughter, Josephine at the restaurant, and Mireille the domineering mother-in-law the are engaging. I even loved the goat, Popette. The scenes from the past are also populated with interesting characters, Gilly, Zeth and Brenda. And finally there is Joe, this magical guy who seems like a blue collar mystic who can astral project. The book has a good rhythm and pacing. The alternating of chapters between the past and present give the story and interesting dual line progression which converge near the end. I was glad I had spent some time in this world. Although the main character's inner struggle is kind of like a clash of burgundies which didn't totally satisfy me, I think most readers will be glad to have read the book.
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Summary: Uncorking magic
Review: Joanne Harris' latest book, Blackberry Wine, picks up on some of the themes of her earlier book, Chocolat. Magic and its application to modern life... the hurtfulness of prejudice, especially religious prejudice against those who don't follow the locally prescribed formula... and the folly of blindly accepting what is too often mistaken as progress and success... are central to both works. In Blackberry Wine, Jay Mackintosh needs a little magic. An unproductive novelist living in a depressing English lifestyle earmarked by alcohol and an unfulfilling relationship, Jay is haunted by a childhood defined by bullies and detached parents but redeemed by the quirky Joe Cox, who planted vegetables and made magical wine. Now, on a whim, Jay sets out to rediscover Joe's magic in the French village of Lansquenet, a place which is quaint and remote but beginning to go to seed and also needs a little magic. Jay carries with him the last six bottles of Joe's Special wine. The house that Jay purchases sight unseen except for a blurry picture in a brochure, is in disrepair but reminds him of Joe, and in fact seems to be inhabited by Joe's ghost. In the house over the next several months, Jay uncorks the Special wines one by one, releasing their magic and allowing himself and the house to absorb their mysterious qualities. He begins renovations on the place, taking care not to lose its essential charm. He meets and learns about the people in the village and their concerns for saving their economy and their way of life. His writer's block lifts and he can hardly believe he is able to produce page after page of a new novel about the village and its inhabitants. He is most intrigued by his reclusive and alluring neighbor Marise, respected by some as a hard worker who bothers no one, but denigrated by others for being unsociable and irreligious. But the more he learns about her, the less she fits the character he had presumed her to be in the fiction he has been creating. Although his novel is coming along swiftly, he does not know where it is going, nor where he himself is going. The village also is waffling through the same process, unclear about how to define its future. Should it embark on tourism and commercial development schemes or sit back and submit to its inevitable economic decline? Through a blending of magic and hard reality, Jay rediscovers what is important in planning his own future and that of the village of Lansquenet.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Blackberry Wine
Review: Joanne Harris's Blackberry Wine is a beautifully and magically writeen story. Lansquenet is described as such a fantastic, ideal place, Harris makes the reader want to jump in the book and live there. Aside from being a thought-inspiring tale, Blackberry Wine is some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read.
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