An engaging, irresistible chocolate-laced romance.
A foray into the world of online dating leads to unexpected and delicious complications in this contemporary romance.
Sarah Westwood’s life revolves around raising her young son, Devon, and working at her family’s restaurant, The Three Chocolatiers, in Ashford, Massachusetts, alongside her grandfather, renowned chef Emile Dumas, and her cousin, Paisley, a talented pastry chef. Several years earlier, Sarah’s world was turned upside down when she lost her job and her husband, Jim, ran off with another woman. While she reinvented her career, her love life is another matter. She doesn’t date, preferring to indulge her passionate side with her love for chocolate. Paisley creates an online dating profile for her, and she finds harmless fun when she is matched with an enticing man named HotNCold. Blake Harrison, the ice cream supplier for The Three Chocolatiers, is attracted to Sarah, but she keeps the relationship strictly professional. Determined to win her heart, he begins a slow seduction using information collected by his online persona, HotNCold. When Emile suffers a medical emergency, Sarah and Paisley are under pressure to successfully execute a chocolate-themed wedding for wealthy clients. As circumstances draw Blake and Sarah closer, she wonders if she can trust in love again. Cleare’s (The Taste of Air, 2016, etc.) latest is an appealing romance with finely drawn characters and a well-constructed story. Sarah is a likable, sympathetic heroine—a single mother who wants to maintain a solid, stable home for her son. Her connection with Blake accretes slowly, bolstered by playful dialogue and scenes that generate a palpable erotic heat. While most of the action revolves around Sarah and Blake’s relationship, both online and in person, the story includes a strong subplot involving The Three Chocolatiers and the elaborate wedding that could cement the restaurant’s stellar reputation. Chocolate lovers may also enjoy the recipes at the end of the novel.
An engaging, irresistible chocolate-laced romance.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72603-658-0
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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