Gail Cleare of Whately hit the USA Today bestseller list with her last novel, “The Taste of Air.” Now she’s back with “Love & Chocolate,” a romance that will appeal both to lovers of the genre and to lovers of chocolate.
Heroine Sarah Westwood has a complicated life. She is the single mother of a child with ADHD and the partner in a bustling restaurant known as the Three Chocolatiers. The other two chocolatiers are her grandfather, Emile, and her cousin, Paisley, both chefs. Sarah’s job is organization and marketing, and she is good at it.
She lives with her son, Devon, in a house she has painstakingly restored. Sarah doesn’t think she has time for a man in her life, particularly since her ex-husband left her scarred; his infidelity to her and rejection of Devon still hurt.
On the other hand, she is lonely … so she allows Paisley to sign her up for a website on which she can mingle, flirt, and do just about anything safely on the internet.
She hits it off with an anonymous man who seems to share her passion for all things chocolate, but she soon finds herself uncomfortable with virtual intimacy.
Her life is complicated by the fact that she is attracted to a flesh-and-blood man named Blake who supplies the restaurant with ice cream he manufactures. Blake appears interested in Sarah, but she sends him mixed signals, unsure whether she can trust herself to love again.
The relationship between Sarah and Blake develops in fits and starts throughout the book. It gets added color from a series of stumbling blocks that need to be addressed: Emile’s sudden illness, an intruder in Sarah’s home and an elaborate chocolate wedding the restaurant must cater.
Plus, the romance derives extra flavor from the chocolate treats spread throughout the story. Sarah loves chocolate so much that she tends to get weak in the knees when she eats it; she has numerous opportunities to do so.
Cleare makes her tale more compelling by adding a series of chocolate recipes at the end; additional recipes may be downloaded for free in a mini-book on the author’s website.
I was a little disappointed that Cleare didn’t include any of the savory recipes mentioned in the book in her compilation. The Three Chocolatiers restaurant serves a chocolate tenderloin I would love to try.
I haven’t given up hope on that recipe, however. “Love & Chocolate” is the first in a trilogy about the restaurant and its personnel. With luck, the tenderloin formula will appear in the next installment.
Tinky Weisblat is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook,” “Pulling Taffy,” and “Love, Laughter, and Rhubarb.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.