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    Forbidden Fruit
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    Forbidden Fruit
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    Forbidden Fruit
    Ebook337 pages5 hours

    Forbidden Fruit

    By Kerry Greenwood

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "Like Corinna's earlier adventures, this episode is cleverly written and chock full of charming characters, interesting puzzles and luscious descriptions of food with appended recipes." —Kirkus Reviews

    Corinna Chapman, owner of the bakery Earthly Delights, detests Christmas. The shoppers are frantic and the heat oppressive in Melbourne, Australia, where Christmas is a summer festival. Corinna is a perfect size 20 with a genius for baking bread. And while dreaming of air-conditioned comfort, she finds herself dealing with a rose-addicted donkey named Serena, a maniacal mother with staring eyes, a distracted assistant seeking the definitive glacé cherry recipe, her friend the fearless witch Meroe, and the luscious Daniel with whom she would like to spend a lot more time.

    But Daniel is on the track of two runaways, Brigid and Manny. Their Romeo-and-Juliet romance is not as straightforward as it seems, and the pair will go a long way to avoid being found. With the help of a troupe of free-spirited "freegans," three very clever internet hackers, and a bunch of singing vegans, Corinna and Daniel go head-to-head with a sinister religious cult on a mission and a band of Romanies out for revenge in a wild and wonderful chase against the clock.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateSep 30, 2011
    ISBN9781615953936
    Unavailable
    Forbidden Fruit
    Author

    Kerry Greenwood

    Kerry Greenwood was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and after wandering far and wide, she returned to live there. She has degrees in English and Law from Melbourne University and was admitted to the legal profession on the 1st April 1982, a day which she finds both soothing and significant. Kerry has written three series, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D’Arcy, is an award-winning children’s writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. The Phryne Fisher series (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny) began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues which was a great success. Kerry has written twenty books in this series with no sign yet of Miss Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Kerry says that as long as people want to read them, she can keep writing them. In 2003 Kerry won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Australian Association.

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    Reviews for Forbidden Fruit

    4/5

    14 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Here's another in Greenwood's Corinna Chapman, the baker, series, which takes place in Melbourne, Australia. This time out it's almost Christmas and boiling hot in Australia. The overweight Corinna doesn't do heat, and she doesn't really like Christmas a whole lot either except for the fact that it makes her bakery loads of money. Plus, she's taking off the whole month of January from baking so a reward is coming. In the meantime, her lover Daniel is trying to find a missing pregnant teenage girl and her boyfriend. A group of "freegans" join in the search and add some spice to the novel. The suspense is not overwhelming, but there's a lot about baking. Recipes are included. I almost felt the need for a glossary to make some of the Australian terms intelligible to American readers. Otherwise, it's a serviceable entry in the Corinna Chapman series. A pleasant diversion.
    • 5/5
      Christmas in Melbourne, Australia. Corinna Chapman hates it.She hates the heat, the humidity, the crowds of grumpy Christmas shoppers, and most especially, the inane Christmas "music" that seems to be broadcast everywhere.Daniel, Corinna's lover, has a case. He's searching for a pregnant teenager who has run away from her controlling, fundamentalist Christian parents. Although Daniel has been employed by the parents, he's determined that he won't force the girl to return to them against her will.As well as supplying baked goods for the greedy Christmas public (with the help of her able apprentice Jason, and shop-assitants Kylie and Gossamer), Corinna feels an obligation to help Daniel in his quest.Corinna's life is delightfully quirky, comfortable and eminently enviable. She lives in an 8-storey apartment building called Insula, with an motley group of residents who have become a family of sorts caring for and celebrating with each other, the perpetually peevish Mrs. Pemberthy excepted. She is a strong, independent woman who is comfortable being a size 20 (bakers shouldn't be skinny!), and more of her adventures are welcome.
    • 3/5
      This is Greenwood's series set in present day Australia about a baker and her friends. The most interesting aspect of this series is the apartment building Insula and the various Roman and Greek names for each unit. The people that own or rent each unit are equally interesting: computer nerds, a witch, a baker, and many others. Animals play a dominant role in all the novels, and usually every unit has a cat or sometimes a dog. In this story, we have a modern Romeo and Juliet or Mary and Joseph scenario. Brigid and Manny are hiding from her father, and Brigid is in the last hours of her pregnancy. Daniel and Corinna must find them. Greenwood loves to display the strata of society in her novels and exposes the lowest level in the Corinna Chapman series. Daniel and Corinna go out at night for the soup run, where a local nun attempts to feed and assist the homeless. The story also mentions the vegans and freegans-two groups with restricted eating practices. Greenwood brings into this novel various religious groups such as the fanatic group of Brigid's mother and the group that hates witches and believes that water will dissolve a witch. Greenwood spent too much time describing Corinna's everyday tasks in this novel.
    • 5/5
      Forbidden Fruit is Kerry Greenwood’s fifth novel in the Corinna Chapman series, and features all our favourite characters from the Earthly Delights bakery and Insula, plus a few new ones. Corinna is suffering the December heat and dreading the Christmas chaos; the delectable Daniel is on the hunt for a pair of teenage runaways, the girl heavily pregnant; Jason is on a quest for the perfect glacé cherry, falls in love with a blonde and becomes the temporary carer of a large Dutch rabbit; resident witch Meroe threatens to curse a few offensive characters; Horatio performs with his usual feline grace and Heckle of the Mouse Police performs a manoeuvre that makes his a starring role; also featured are the Freegans (living on free food and accommodation as they can), the carolling choristers incorporating a few animal libbers, a sect of fanatical “Christians”, some gypsies and a rosewater-addicted donkey. A few charming Christmas analogies appear. Mouth-watering muffins and cakes abound; one can almost smell the bread baking. As with all the Corinna novels, this one is a delight to read, will leave the reader feeling good and probably the best so far. Readers will be looking forward to “Cooking the Books” to continue their Corinna fix.
    • 3/5
      I have never been able to connect with the Phyrne Fisher series and enjoy this series more. Corrina is an untraditional lead surrounded by quirky characters. As much as the story happens to Corinna it also happens around her which is a unique narrative point. Credibility can be stretched a little but that is why its fiction. It's not really a traditional mystery either but still and enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      Another Corinna Chapman book from Kerry Greenwood is always welcome. I love Greenwood's mysteries, even though they are much more in the cozy vein than I usually read. Set in modern Melbourne, with cameos of people that I think I half know, this book is a warm-hearted riot of a search for a missing pregnant teen, with hot grumpy Xmas shopping, donkeys, evil fundamentalists, cats, witches, gypsies, freegans and more. If only real life were as warm and kind as Insula. I want to move in.
    • 4/5
      This a very good book to read at this time of year when the arctic wind makes you forget that you were ever warm. it takes place in Australia during December and the Christmas season. There the north wind is described as dragon's breath because it is so hot and the denizen's of Melbourne search for icy air conditioning to ease their holiday shopping woes. As always Greenwood takes you below the surface into more sinister environs where danger lurks for the unwary.
    • 1/5
      FORBIDDEN FRUIT is the 5th book in the Corinna Chapman series by Australian author Kerry Greenwood (probably best known for her Phryne Fisher series). These books are set in modern day, inner Melbourne, are also on the cosier end of the scale. There are enough elements that coincide in both series to make fans of one feel somewhat comfortable in the other. Having never read any of the earlier books in this series, though, I can't comment on whether FORBIDDEN FRUIT is particularly representative, so I comment on it in isolation.Corrina is a woman who has turned to baking after a life in the professions. Happier, content to the point of delirious, she is even able to just cope with the 4.00am starts. Living in very idealised circumstances, she has a happy home life in a building full of bohemian type characters, all living their own somewhat unorthodox lives. A content love life with Daniel, the main thing making Corinna grumpy in this book is Christmas.Basically the story is that Daniel, the private investigator, is trying to track down two teenage runaways. Pregnant Brigid and the father of her baby Manny. Neither parents approve of either of the couple, Brigid has been locked up at home awaiting the birth of the unwanted (by her family) child, when she escapes and hits the streets with Manny. Daniel wants to find them because he's been asked by her parents, Corinna wants to find them because she's worried for Brigid's health. Along the way they are assisted / distracted by nuns who run a soup kitchen bus, freegans, maniacal mothers, thunderstorms and naked dancing witches, a donkey named Serena, glace cherries, the heat of a long hot Melbourne summer and meals which are described in somewhat minute detail.Whilst it could be that all these distractions - and to be frank - meandering down a simply astounding number of irrelevant byways and cul-de-sacs is part of the charm of these books, in FORBIDDEN FRUIT, it just seemed to go on, and on, and on, and on. As did the none-too-subtle hinting about the joys of bohemia and alternative lifestyles and finding your inner whatevers. Not that I'm opposed to any of the elements that were raised by this book - but I just found that the constant bombardment and distractions ended up, well tedious. Every time the plot tried to progress a little, the reader was suddenly down one of those cul-de-sacs with a whinge about something (really, if you don't like Christmas decoration shopping then just don't do it!), or a lauding of "insert bandwagon here". Yes, I know these books are fictional and idealised, and maybe that's part of the problem - I prefer idealised fiction that "shows" rather "crows".There are some glimpses of parallels between elements of these books and the Phyrne Fisher series that were interesting - a similar sort of independent, feisty female character with an abandonment of normal conventions. But in FORBIDDEN FRUIT everything just seemed a little too over the top, a little too arch, a little too preachy for comfort. Perhaps this is a book for fans of the series, perhaps there's something about not reading the earlier books that means I missed the point.
    • 5/5
      I was lucky enough to get to read an ARC of this on my Kindle, courtesy of the US publishers Poisoned Pen Press, through NetGalley.For those who haven't yet made her acquaintance Corinna Chapman is an accountant turned baker who has a shop in Melbourne, just off Flinders' Lane.FORBIDDEN FRUIT is #5 in the Corinna Chapman series (you may already be aware of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series which also has a new title out this year).It is December in Melbourne, in the lead up to Christmas. As it often is at this time of the year, Melbourne is in the grip of a heatwave, with north wind days every day: hectic, invasive, dust-bearing wind like dragon's breath. Corinna and her assistant run a boutique bakery in the ground floor of an old building named, Roman style, Insula, with apartments in the floors above populated by a range of interesting/weird characters.Corinna's lover Daniel is searching for two young people, both 16 years old. Brigid O'Ryan is pregnant, near term, and she has disappeared with Manny Lake, an apprentice landscape gardener. They have been missing for 10 days, and Brigid's father has commissioned Daniel to find them. Manny's parents are bewildered by their son's disappearance.The search for the missing kids is literally a race against time, and brings them head-to-head with a sinister religious cult on a mission and a band of Romanies out for revenge. We meet most of the residents of Insula and get a glimpse of their close knit community.The Corinna Chapman books are light cosy reads, sure to be popular with those who like food with their mystery. In this one Corinna's talented assistant (and Corinna is no mean cook herself) is in search for the perfect recipe for glace cherries. Everyday their bakery "Earthly Delights" serves up a mouth watering range of muffins and breads. As always, in the final pages of the book, Corinna delivers some tried and true recipes for readers to try. The ones at the end of FORBIDDEN FRUIT are for glace cherries, Christmas cakes, Vegie delights, and variety of muffins. One of the things I think Kerry Greenwood gets right is a taste of Melbourne weather at this time of the year.
    • 4/5
      Great book from one of my favorite authors. Probably not suitable if you are religious but I enjoy how irreverent she is!
    • 5/5
      Australia, small-business, friendship, family-dynamics, cosy-mystery The publisher's blurb is pretty good, but I really love the characters, especially those who live at Insula! It's what the characters say and do that make the books, plots are always important but if the characters don't worm their way into you it's just another read. Each book in the series can stand alone, but you miss some really great laughs. Reading in order is not really necessary.
    • 3/5
      Although branded crime fiction it’s stretching the bounds of the genre’s definition to call it that. There’s not a dead body in sight and until the last few pages there’s not even a hint that a single crime has been committed. The fifth book in Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman series sees her boyfriend Daniel, a private investigator, trying to trace the whereabouts of two teenage runaways. The girl, Brigid, is heavily pregnant. Of course Corinna becomes involved in the search in between running her successful bakery, fending off a troupe of carol-singing vegans who are opposed to all the companion animals that share the apartment block where most of the book’s characters live and dealing with a donkey addicted to her rose-syrup flavoured muffins.

      Given that there’s no real crime or detecting going on and given that much of the action is of the incidental, non-plot developing kind I can appreciate this reviewer’s disappointed response to the book. However I like this series. I enjoy the odd assortment of characters and the way the series celebrates a whole range of lifestyles and doesn’t just feature the traditional families and loner alcoholics that populate much of crime fiction. In lots of ways it reflects my own real world environment and I appreciate dipping into the lives of these people every now and again. Even so, I don’t think this is the best example of the series given that its plot is so weak in comparison to the other books in the series. (I’ve rated it a 3 out 5).

      For Christmas-y ness though the book has some unique things to offer. Being set in Melbourne, Australia the book really does a great job of depicting a Southern Hemisphere Christmas where often scorching heat replaces chilly snow. I don’t think Northern Hemisphere dwellers (except perhaps native Californians) really appreciate how tedious all the frosty snowmen and dreaming of white Christmases can be when it’s often hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement on Christmas morning. And Corinna, who hates the trappings of Christmas but can get into the spirit of things when pressed, depicts a fairly realistic attitude to the season. The ending of the book, with its nativity references abounding, is a bit too cheesy even for me but overall I still enjoyed catching up with Corinna and her good-hearted friends once again.