Product Description

When Grosjean's estranged daughter Mado returns to Le Devin, a tiny island caught like a crab in the shallow seas of northern France, she brings with her an air of energy and change that ruffles the crusty local fisherman. Divided squarely into two warring communities, the people from La Houssiniere on the near side and those from Les Salants on the far side, the islanders' traditional feuds and superstitions persist. More menacing is the powerful Brismand, whose ruthless interests threaten the very survival of Les Salants, the community to which Mado belongs. In enterprising spirit, Mado arranges to build a huge reef diverting the tide that has been gradually shifting the Salannais' beach towards their rivals, the Houssins, on the other side of the island, and steals it back. In doing so, she sparks off a chain of events that brings not only hope to the dying Salannais community, but also revelations of a past tragedy that still haunts the elderly Grosjean. Mado is determined to find out what plagues her mute father, and to stop the cunning Brismand whose business plans threaten her family's land. But her head is turned by the attractive, free-spirited Flynn. How far can she trust this flame-haired stranger, who claims he is without roots, yet whose connections with the island seem to run so deep? Inspired by the island Joanne Harris used to visit as a child, good battles against evil in this tale of bitter poetry that proves no man is ever an island. Rich with coastal imagery and smells, its twists and turns are salty and powerful, and utterly compelling.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7320 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
After three novels which centred around gastronomic pleasures Joanne Harris's new book, Coastliners, focuses on more astringent joys. Sea, gritty sand and adverse weather conditions replace Chocolat, Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange. Set on a small, blustery fishing island off the coast of France, it tells the story of Mado, a young woman who returns to her childhood home to find the local community torn apart by family feuds, bad tides and murky political machinations.

Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose "head is full of rocks" tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. The villagers, written with endearing panache by Harris, are an eccentric, curmudgeonly bunch, who eventually cooperate with the help of Flynn, a charismatic stranger with a shady past. He's not the only man of mystery in Mado's life; her father, taciturn Grosjean, has a secretive heart that's as "prickly and tightly layered as an artichoke", and local, wealthy businessman Brismand also seems to be hiding something. Mado does her best to unravel these mysteries, while attempting to keep a hold on her own sense of self in the claustrophobic, close community. It's not only the shore line that takes a buffeting. The villagers and the island are so vividly described that it's impossible not to become engrossed in Mado's story. Coastliners is a book about longing to belong, and Joanne Harris charts that emotional voyage compellingly. --Eithne Farry

Review
Joanne Harris's new novel is set on the windswept French island of Le Devin, which is located off the Vendee coastline. The story opens as painter Mado Prasteau returns to the island of her birth after a long absence. She and her mother, who is now dead, left the island years before while her estranged father, the boatbuilder Jean Prasteau, remained. Mado, like jetsam, finds herself inexorably pulled back to her childhood home. In fact the mantra of the novel itself becomes 'everything returns'. Mado comes home to a lukewarm welcome from some of the islanders, who form an intensely close and unforgiving community, including her father who has become even more reclusive and uncommunicative during her absence. Gradually Mado finds herself drawn into the war of resentment brewing between her own fishing village, the sea-battered Les Salants, and the prosperous tourist town of La Houssinere, which boasts the only sheltered sandy beach on the island. She also finds herself attracted to the mysterious newcomer Flynn, who has, unusually, endeared himself to the Les Salants folk. Harris skilfully weaves a story of warring communities, turning tides, forbidden love and sibling rivalry in a community bound by tradition and superstition. Many of the villagers' lives have been touched by tragedy as they have lost loved ones to the wild and unpredictable sea. As ever, Harris keeps the reader turning the pages as her story unfolds and her vividly drawn characters come to life. The real hero of the story, however, is the island of Le Devin itself whose shape resembles that of a sleeping woman and who, though no beauty, inspires fierce loyalty and love among its inhabitants. (Kirkus UK)

Daily Express
'Her latest gripping tale...An intoxicating mix of documentary realism and enchanting romance'

Customer Reviews

Deja vu; deja vu; deja vu
Starting to read this (thankfully library copy) book reminded me why I had stopped reading Joanne Harris.

Chocolat was a magical and enjoyable read, but i did begin to get that 'we have been here before' sense creeping up on me with both 'Five Quarters' and 'Blackberry Wine' Though 'Coastliners' doesn't follow the same food route, there is something very repetitious about Harris' writing - the 'outsider', the tight, often prejudiced community etc etc.

Some writers can repeat their same basic story but their depth of writing uncovers new truths, some writers (for example the wonderful Rose Tremaine) are endlessly original in every book - Harris is neither of these, and does her own same old same old - as several reviewers noted, the word 'formulaic' springs to mind. I abandoned Coastliners within about 50 pages and it is back on the library shelf

Reliable as ever...
You can't really go wrong with Joanne Harris. This is another page-turning, totally engaging tale with plenty of plot twists. Formulaic it may be, but her formula certainly seems to work. I much prefered this to Chocolat, but it's not as good as the black-hearted, sitting-up-till-4am read that is Five Quarters of the Orange.

so sweet, so enchanted
Whenever I read a Joanna Harris thing, its the same... small villages, modern times and the necessity to change, strangers and people who come back and change something...I liked all books of her, but I love Coastliners. Everyone who knows a small village, struggling to keep their youth, their way of living and the connection with nature, history and religion that has been a foundation of the village life for so long, will know what Joanna Harris is writing about. Everyone who loves such a small village will love this book, and others will, too. You will feel the island, feel secluded, safe and at the same time, desperate and afraid, when you read this book.