Mmm, this is a book that will make you hungry!
The Chocolate Thief by Laura Florand
(2012, Contemporary) 4/16/13
Grade: 4
Cade Corey, the heir to the Corey chocolate fortune, is in Paris in hopes of starting a gourmet chocolate line – and she wants the best chocolatier in Paris, Sylvain Marquis, to work with her. But Sylvain has no interest in working for a company that sells cheap chocolate bars at supermarkets. Cade and Sylvain begin to play a cat and mouse game, but the game isn’t for chocolate – it’s for love.
This was a charming, fun book. It had a “fairy tale” aspect to it so I couldn’t take the story too seriously. I especially liked the heroine – I know enough about the history of Hershey to enjoy this fictionalized version. Sylvain was more of a stereotypical alpha hero, albeit one with an interesting career, but he improved in the second half of the book. My one complaint is that the ending felt rushed – the hero and heroine go from thinking it won’t work out to Cade deciding to leave her entire life and move to Paris in just a couple of pages. It really needed more time to feel real (especially since Cade seems to enjoy her job for most of the book so her sudden decision to drop everything seemed a little forced). But the charming feel of the book, and the luscious descriptions of the chocolate, kept me turning the pages despite its flaws.
I found the background of Corey chocolate so interesting – especially since I visited the Hershey museum a couple of years ago – that I’d love to see another book with that history as a backdrop. But it doesn’t seem like Laura Florand’s other chocolate books have anything to do with that.
Karen Wheless
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