The latest book in the Amour et Chocolat series by Laura Flroand, The Chocolate Temptation, was just released. It tells the story of Patrick and Sarah whom the reader met in Luc's kitchen in The Chocolate Heart. I really enjoyed the previous two books in this series and I am excited about this one.
It is a passionate romantic story of two complex people dealing with their own issues and going after their dreams only to end up together and with a new common dream.
Author: Laura Florand
Genre: Contemporary romance
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Synopsis
She hated him.
Patrick Chevalier. The charming, laid-back, golden second-in-command of the Paris pastry kitchen where Sarah worked as intern, who made everything she failed at seem so easy, and who could have every woman he winked at falling for him without even trying. She hated him, but she’d risked too much for this dream to give up on it and walk out just so he wouldn’t break her heart.
But he didn’t hate her.
Sarah Lin. Patrick’s serious, dark-haired American intern, who looked at him as if she could see right through him and wasn’t so impressed with what she saw. As her boss, he knew he should leave her alone. The same way he knew better than to risk his heart and gamble on love.
But he was never good at not going after what – or who – he wanted.
He could make magic out of sugar. But could he mold hate into love?
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About the author:
Laura Florand is the international bestselling author of the Amour et Chocolat series. Her books have been translated into seven languages, received the RT Seal of Excellence and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and been recommended by NPR, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, among others. Four of her past five books have been recommended reads by Dear Author and two have been Sizzling Book Club Picks by Smart B*, Trashy Books.
Laura was born in a small town in Georgia, but the travel bug bit her early. After a Fulbright year in Tahiti, a semester in Spain, and backpacking in New Zeland and Greece, she ended up living in Paris, where she met and married her own handsome Frenchman. You can find out quite a bit more about those crazy adventures in her memoir, Blame It on Paris. She is now a lecturer in Romance Studies at Duke University. Contrary to popular opinion, that means she studies and teaches French language and culture, rather than romance.
Author's links:
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A moment in Sarah Lin’s life as an intern in one of the top pastry kitchens in the world, with Patrick Chevalier as the second responsible for correcting her mistakes and training her to get things right. He’s just had to toss out one of four of the plates she is prepping because they weren’t good enough.
Excerpt
Patrick winked at her, stacking her rejected plates out of the way. “Let me show you a trick, Sarabelle. For just how easy these plates can be.”
Oh, no. Oh, but yes. She craved it every time.
He came around the counter, always such a casual grace to him that one forgot how fast and precisely he moved. Maybe he forgot it, too. He had grown up in this environment; maybe everything felt in slow, relaxed motion to him.
Warmth wrapped around her body from behind. “Like this, Sarabelle.” His voice just seemed to rub over the top of her head. A long arm fitted itself to her much shorter one, and through two layers of thick chef’s jackets, she felt its strength. Like a fencer’s, but a fencer who fenced non-stop every day for sixteen hours. His cheek nestled in next to hers, the gold-streaked bronze of his hair tickling her temple, a strand catching against the far edge of her eyelashes. Just for a second, that close, his scent, warm and male, snuck through all the scents of lemon and butter and vanilla and cinnamon and chocolate and strawberry and fresh-crushed almonds, the layering of aromas so thick even human sweat rarely managed to assert a presence.
“Relax.” He squeezed her wrist just a little.
And, of course, she did. It was terrible how little she could help it, and how wonderful it felt, when all her muscles yielded themselves up to him.
He laughed and guided her hand closer to his mouth as he bent to it, bent her body with him, his hand cupping hers. Pleasure washed through her. This felt so right. She could get nothing wrong. For one second, with him controlling her, she could only get everything right. His chest pressed into her back, in that graceful dip over the plate she had seen him make a hundred thousand times. His breath ran, so faintly it could have been the touch of sunlight, over her bared wrist, swirling in her palm. He adjusted the angle. Air glided over her finger, and gold dust swirled from it as his other arm, circling around her, deftly guided the plate under the fall, turning it to get the sweeping look of the “ashes” perfect.
“There.” He gave her that quirky smile that made her feel as if she was standing at the very edge of a cliff above a turquoise sea, ready to drop into his arms naked, roll over and over with him on a sun-washed beach. “Got it?” With a wink, he was gone.
She tried to catch herself back, but her toe caught on the edge of that imagined cliff just as the waves pulled back, and she fell splat on the jagged rocks below.
Her toes curled so tightly in her shoes they hurt. She couldn’t tell the difference between his plate and hers. Not at all. Six months of brutal, expensive courses at Culinaire, nearly five months as an intern, huge debts she was trying to juggle on her stagiaire stipend of four hundred euros a month, and she couldn’t see it. Almost, almost, but not really, she could almost feel the difference, tickling in her palm where his breath had been.
She curled her fingers over that palm, trying to hold that brush of breath to it. And she hated him for that breath. She hated him as hard as she could.
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Giveaway: To celebrate the release of The Chocolate Temptation Ms Florand is giving away one ebook copy of her previous book, The Chocolate Heart. The giveaway is open internationally.
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