The Story...Paris - Breathtakingly beautiful, the city of light seduces the senses, its cobbled streets thrumming with possibility. For American Cade Corey, it's a dream come true, if only she can get on infuriating French chocolatier to sign on the dotted line...
Chocolate - Melting, yielding yet firm, exotic, its secrets are intimately known to Sylvain Marqius. But turn them over to a brash American waving a fistfull of dollars? Jamais. Not unless there's something much more delectable on the table...
Stolen Pleasure - Whether confections taken from a locked shop or kisses in the dark, is there anything sweeter?
A Reader's Experience...
OK, so I am definitely not alone in admitting that chocolate is my definitive weak spot. So I spotted a novel that appeared to have turned my "Sweet tooth" in to a central passion and subject and I figured, how can I go wrong? Although the outcome of the novel is somewhat predictable, I found the characters colorful, the moments and interactions they go through entertaining, and the mood and setting enticing.
The author makes extensive, fantastic use of description - thoughts, feelings, moves - in order to create the two central characters. She is impulsive and driven, an independent go-getter who seemingly takes many risks in order to advance her career and make her dreams happen. At the same time, it is clear that she is struggling to reconcile her own dreams with the expectations of her family, which is a juggling act I feel that the majority of us will have to settle to some degree. He, too, is a dreamer who ceaseslessly endeavors to make something of himself while preserving the authenticity and skillfulness of his craft, seducing lovely women in the process.
Any time you have two willful, stubborn people with competing interests, there is bound to be drama. I was certainly amused by the banter between these characters, by how easly the dynamic could shift between them and how strongly they were drawn together. It's a kind of attraction that I can't say I've ever experienced, but the instincts and cumpulsive needs behind this developing relationship are something that the author makes very real and intriguing.
When I picture the settings of the novel - the sights, sounds, smells, tastes of a chocolate factory in the midst of Paris - I could see losing myself in it all and just soaking it in. I sense Cade's spark of adventure and the thirst to travel and explore new things, and I cannot wait to satisfy more if this curiosity within myself. There is a mood about the novel that is playful and lighthearted, with enough of a serious tone to make it believable.
The story proves that life really is a box of chocolates.
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