Holy Fools by Joanne Harris

There's an air of familiarity to this novel, although it's set in early 17th-century France. An independent-minded single mother with a knowledge of witchcraft, her precocious daughter, a wicked priest determined to thwart her... it could almost be the cast of Chocolat, dusted down and time-machined back to a period just after the assassination of Henri IV in 1610.

It is more complex, of course: religious fervour, inquisitorial judges, civil unrest and the danger of being burnt as a witch, rather than merely having your chocolate shop boycotted, heighten the drama. The heroine, Juliette, an actress and rope-dancer with a travelling troupe, has fled to a convent on a remote island south of Brittany after the company was attacked in a plague-stricken town.

Five years on, her security is shaken when another theatre troupe arrives to entertain the nuns. As she recalls her rope-dancing days, she sees a black crow, omen of misfortune and a reminder of her former lover, Guy LeMerle: actor, conman, malicious troublemaker. Then the old abbess dies, and Juliette's world is overturned by the arrival of the new abbess, an 11-year-old child from a noble family bent on reform. No great surprise to find that the girl's confessor is LeMerle, using his acting talents and an assumed name stolen from a priest he has murdered.

The stage is set for mayhem as LeMerle's agenda for bringing down the convent is revealed. To prevent Juliette from blowing the gaff, her five-year-old daughter, Fleur, is taken and hidden with a fisherman's family. A battle of wits begins between the two adversaries, all the more difficult for Juliette who, after five years of celibacy, is still susceptible to her former lover. Faced with her hostility, LeMerle tries the well-worn seducer's charm: "Exquisite harpy... you look wonderful when you're angry.." Shades of Scarlett and Rhett.

What undermines the novel, though, is the shade of Ken Russell. As the false priest begins to exploit the women's repressed desires, it recalls the more risible scenes from The Devils. The nuns' frenzied dances, as they cast off their clothes, have a sense of déjà vu, and the climactic scene as the bishop arrives in the midst of disorder feels like a re-run. You sense a certain fatigue as the author pulls out all the stops for a Grand Guignol finale.

Although this is a historical novel, it is not really about its era, so much as an archetypal fable. The characters, too, are from the realms of fantasy: Juliette with her foxy red hair and LeMerle with his devilish looks. This may be the intention, for the novel begins and ends with commedia dell'arte players – Arlequin, Scaramouche, Isabelle.

LeMerle as Scaramouche and Juliette as Isabelle play their parts as in a theatre. Some of the best writing is about the sequin and cardboard glitter of make-believe, with an underlying theme of the conflict between the nomadic life and the desire to be rooted. It's a conflict that Juliette has not resolved by the end of the novel, and you doubt that she ever will.

Clare Colvin's novel 'The Mirror Makers' is published next month by Heinemann