It’s time to head back to France with author Joanne Harris!
The author’s 1999 novel Chocolat struck readers with its story of single mother Vianne Rocher, who arrives in French village Lansquent with her daughter to open a chocolate shop. The book was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film in 2000, starring Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench and Alfred Molina.
Now, Harris is publishing a prequel to the novel, Vianne, set to hit shelves this fall via Pegasus Books.
In the prequel, readers will follow Vianne years before she opened her Lansquet store, when she was a woman called Sylviane Rochas. After scattering her mother’s ashes in New York, she leaves for the French coastal town of Marseille for a fresh start.
Sylviane changes her name to Vianne, and takes a job as a waitress in a local restaurant, all while coming to terms with being pregnant. As she gets to know the locals, Vianne discovers a hidden talent for cooking, particularly with chocolate spices, which she learns may change her life as well as the lives of others.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Harris, who has written other books featuring Vianne Rocher, such as The Girl with No Shadow and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, tells PEOPLE that the cover of the prequel contains important meaning as well.
“I love the U.S. cover art for this book; the vibrant colour; the cacao pods and the little central medallion of the basilica in Marseille. All of it conveys a sense of color and sunshine, and the magic of faraway places,” Harris says. “In South American mythology, the cacao pod was the symbol of the heart; I think that’s very appropriate for this story of pleasure, heartbreak and cooking.”
Read on for an exclusive excerpt from Vianne.
“Oh, it’s you. Come in,” he said, opening the door wider. “Guy’s in the shop. I was cooking.”
“Cooking what?”
He looked down at his apron. “Chocolate. What else?”
It didn’t look like chocolate to me, and I said so. There was a scent, though: a dark, fruity, fermented scent, like someone’s home-brewed wine gone wrong. I wondered if there was a still hidden away inside the building.
“I know it looks like blood,” said Mahmed. “This is raw cacao liquor, bled from the fruit of the cacao tree. Bled at some cost, in fact, although Guy assures me that this is the only way to do it.”
I looked uncertainly at my surroundings. The place looked less like a shop, and more like a kind of shelter, in which crates and metal drums had been piled chaotically from floor to ceiling. A passage, lit by a naked bulb, led to a clearer space, and I followed behind Mahmed as the scent of fermentation grew, until I found myself in a room that looked like a kind of laboratory. Glass jars and demijohns against one wall; in the centre, a long metal table covered with something like almonds, but with a dry and dusty look that made me think they must be old.
“Cacao beans,” said Mahmed.
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
I picked one up and crushed it. It felt at the same time greasy and dry. But the scent it released was complex; dark and sweet and throaty. It made me think of ancient maps and places long-forgotten. Vanilla, from the scented isles. Saffron from Morocco. I thought back to that little bar of Poulain chocolate; as a child, I’d never asked myself what it was, or from what part of the world it had come. But there was history in that scent; history and a terrible age. And yet there was also childhood; a half-remembered sadness; a memory of different skies; a sweetness all but forgotten.
Excerpted from Vianne by Joanne Harris. To be published September 2, 2025 by Pegasus Books. © Joanne Harris. Reprinted with permission.
Vianne is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
Read the full article here
