Laura Florand has done it again!! Not only does she always manage to write characters that I care about and love, but she always makes me want to go back to Paris immediately!! I loved this story of Patrick, Luc's second in the kitchen, and Sarah, his young intern. Like her other books, there was so much heat and so much passion. I think I may have blushed a couple of times. I love that she alternated between the POV of the two characters and Florand was so adept at describing how a childhood can effect our adult lives and the decisions we make. She did this perfectly with Patrick and Sarah. Both of them were damaged in their own way and this kept them from taking risks and caused quite a few misunderstandings. That is really the only complaint I have: there were too many misunderstandings and I just wanted the two of them to talk already! Also I think the ending kind of dragged a little bit. But I still really, really loved this book. Ergh, I wanted to stop at that chapter when Patrick went all creeper on Sarah during the night he walked her to her apt with the excuse of wanting to borrow an umbrella. (SPOILER- he had STOLEN her umbrella so he could have an excuse to stay at her apt- he even kindly thought about quietly returning the umbrella in the morning when he left.) Are you kidding me? This guy is crazy, not romantic. But I wanted to see if this train wreck was going to fix itself or continue on its path to destruction... And YUP, it did-- go on wrecking itself, I mean.And that doozy when he basically confessed to sexually harassing her at work when she suddenly realized all the UST was him sexually harassing and manipulating her- is this for real? How could she NOT be running for the hills after that? I understand her admiration and attraction for him, but damn, don't take that shit from anyone, not even a handsome French dude like Patrick. And can anyone tell me what the plot was? I mean, I know a lot of romantic novels are rather iffy in the plot area, but I totally lost the plot on this one. (And don't tell me that this is a romance novel-- it's supposed to FOCUS on the looooooove between the protagonist vs the plot itself. I KNOW you can have BOTH and still have a successful romance novel.) I thought I was going to read about Sarah's internship at this famous pastry kitchen and learning about her ambitions, not this terrible, terrible MAN PAIN thinly veiled as this awesome idea about an Asian American women who gave up her life's work in her first career to work in a male dominated Parisian pastry kitchen as an intern. And DAMN she even learned fluent French for this chance! I feel so let down! I would give it one star, but I'll tack on the extra one because of the awesome premise.
What do You think about The Chocolate Temptation (2000)?
Patrick and Sarah. Not the best one in the series, but possibly the one I'm most likely to reread.
—maj
My heart is melting like a chocolate. BRB when I'm done melting.
—Mary_tas
Painful, awkward, and lovely.Probably a B-
—gostarter
