Her first novel, "The Evil Seed", was published in 1989, with only limited success. A second novel, "Sleep, Pale Sister", shows the way in which her style developed from horror-pastiche to literary ghost story. In 1999 her third novel, "Chocolat", a darkly magical modern folk-tale, thematically based on food and set in the Gers region of France, reached No. 1 in the "Sunday Times" bestseller list. The book won the Creative Freedom Award in 1999 and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award. The film rights were sold to David Brown and developed by Miramax Pictures. The success of the motion picture, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, brought Harris worldwide recognition, and in 2012 she became one of only four female members of the "Millionaires Club", the elite group of authors who have achieved a million sales of a single book in the UK since records began.