Blueeyedboy: the second in a trilogy of dark, chilling and witty psychological thrillers from bestselling author Joanne Harris

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It’s getting difficult to find my cookbooks in physical form, but they’ve recently all been published digitally right here… Joanne Harris, the acclaimed author of Chocolat, departs from sunny characters and a feel-good story in her latest work, blueeyedboy. I’m a Joanne Harris’ fan, I’ve read and enjoyed many of her books so I was surprised I didn’t like this novel more.

In addition to this impressive output, she has published two books of short stories; Jigs & Reels (2004), and A Cat, A Hat and a Piece of String (2012), and, with cookery writer Fran Warde, three cookbooks; The French Kitchen and The French Market and The Little Book of Chocolat. I don’t think of the process of writing as creation,” she muses. “To me it’s much more like method acting. I nearly always write in the first person, so the more I know about the characters the better I am at writing them. I have to work out a lot about their past. Moreover, there were too many twist and revelations in the plot and too many deaths (are they real or fantasies?) that don’t raise suspicions (you’d think that by the third or fourth death in a small community authorities would start to pay attention, no?). From all this came Blueeyedboy, a dark psychological thriller set in the world of the internet, where no-one is quite what they seem to be, and every taste is catered for, even the ones to which we dare not confess. This is a very clever book; arguably the cleverest of all Harris’s books and almost certainly too clever for the likes of me. Because I struggled with it, if I’m honest.In what way is this a novel about identity, and how our identity is shaped by our senses and how we perceive the world? http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/i-ve-just-finished-reading/7721723/I-ve-just-finished-reading-Blue-Eyed-Boy For her next novel, Harris intends to please the fans who found Blueeyedboy a bit too hot to handle. The narrator of the novel (like the author) has synaesthesia . Find out more about this condition here.

The author misdirects the reader a number of times in this book. How does this contribute to the theme of perception and identity? Do your feelings about BB change when you realize how much he has lied to you? Engrossing psychological thriller...a novel of unusual complexity...Harris, best known for Chocolat , again shows her skill and versatility' -- Mail on SundayTaste and scent are very important in this book, though not necessarily in a pleasant way. How does the author use this to heighten scenes of emotional significance? Another attribute that Monarch calls out is the fact that it is “Private & Exclusive. Monarch is only available to members and not to the general public. Like-minded members will be able to work towards their fitness and health goals without distraction.” It is a close community, rife with conflicting factions. Outsiders are not welcome, and those who do not fit in are the subject of gossip and speculation. There is a great deal of snobbery, and there is bitter rivalry between the state school and St Oswald's, the grammar school. Is this the best book ever written? Harris’s achievement is not only in her story, in her insight and humour and the wonderful picture of small-town life in rural France, but also in her writing. (Literary Review) French novels