Five Quarters of the Orange

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
The official blurb:

“Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake – but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow, plies her culinary trade at the crêperie – and lets her memory play strange games.

As her nephew attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes Framboise has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers, memories of a disturbed childhood during the German Occupation flood back, and expose a past full of betrayal, blackmail and lies.”

Having been captivated by Joanne Harris’s beautiful novel ‘Chocolat’, I read her next book very soon afterwards. I found this one to be similarly evocative of the time and place and smells and flavours. I love the way she luxuriates in food; one of the main characters in this book is even named after the raspberry liqueur, Framboise.