Vianne (novel)

Vianne is a 2025 novel by British author Joanne Harris. It is a prequel to her 1999 novel Chocolat, and is the fifth novel in the Chocolat series. It also exists as an audiobook, narrated by the author.

The novel is set six years before Chocolat, and finds the heroine, Vianne Rocher, aged twenty-one, newly bereaved, and homeless in the French city of Marseille. Still grieving the death of her mother, but determined to give her unborn child a better life than the one she has had, Vianne finds employment in a bistrot in the Old Quarter of Marseille, and learns how to use the cookery book left to the owner, Louis Martin, by his dead wife, Margot. She also befriends Guy Lacarrière, who is trying to open a boutique chocolaterie in the Old Quarter, in the face of all obstacles. Guy's passion for chocolate intrigues Vianne, who ends up helping him in his shop and learning the various techniques of chocolate-making. But the more closely involved Vianne becomes in the life of the community, the more she sees that her dream of putting down roots in Marseille is fraught with difficulty. Her mother's legacy - the magic that both of them practised - is a gift that comes at a price, and Vianne is forced to confront both her past and her identity.