Review: THE CHOCOLATE THIEF by Laura Florand

Cade Corey, the heir apparent to the multi-billion dollar business Corey Chocolate, dreams of creating the type of gourmet specialty chocolates that are made by the master chocolatiers of Paris. In particular, she's obsessed with the best chocolatier (according to the mayor and several influential critics), Sylvain Marquis. Unfortunately, Sylvain thinks her business offer is a joke and sneers her out of his salon. So Cade decides if she can't buy what she wants, she'll just have to steal it.

As you should all know by now, I loooooooved The Chocolate Touch. I didn't think The Chocolate Thief was as good as The Chocolate Touch, but it was still enjoyable.

Going into this book, I was worried it would be formulaic. Like with Glenna Finley—my mom has about 20 of her novels, all of which I read over the course of one summer, and if you've read one you've pretty much read them all. Fortunately for all of us, Laura Florand isn't Glenna Finley. While The Chocolate Thief does have the same charming, fairy tale atmosphere as The Chocolate Touch, it doesn't follow a specific fairy tale (or if it does it's not one I'm not familiar with), and both Sylvain and Cade are quite different, personality-wise, from Jaime and Dom. While The Chocolate Touch was an emotional story about trust and perception and healing, The Chocolate Thief is a coming-of-age journey. Cade has to come to terms with what she wants versus what's expected of her.

The Paris of The Chocolate Thief is also different from the one in The Chocolate Touch—more the Paris of the American tourist. Unlike Jolie, Cade hasn't spent months in the city by the time the story starts, and she has to adjust her romantic expectations of Paris with the reality, particularly the quirks of French culture that don't make sense to Americans. For example, why is it so difficult to get a French person to give out information? It's like pulling teeth sometimes. I just don't understand. Also: French showers are crazy.

My favorite culture clash scene was when Cade went to a cafe with a food blogger and tried to order milk and they refused to serve it to her, even though a cafe would obviously have milk. When she asks the food blogger (flogger?) why, he's just like, "I think he probably just doesn't want to give Americans ideas. You people are always asking for milk in cafés, and once you let someone get away with something like that, who knows where it might lead?" INDEED. I also liked Sylvain's point of view and how he's just like, "What is wrong with you Americans? Don't you know how to eat/drink/live/etc?" Apparently not.

Anyway. The main reason I didn't like The Chocolate Thief as much as The Chocolate Touch was because the story wasn't quite as strong. Things don't start to get really interesting until Cade decides to break into Sylvain's salon, and by then we're nearly halfway through the book! (Although I did love that everyone's reaction on hearing about this chocolate thief was, "That's hot," instead of total outrage. And that she turned into a chocolate Robin Hood.) The novel was also a tad episodic, with more of a chick lit sensibility than a romantic one. Chick lit is not my favorite genre.

Stilllllll, The Chocolate Thief is delightful and definitely a book you want to read if you're a foodie. Also, the sex scenes were really hot (just in case you wanted to know) and the ending with Sylvain's family party was really sweet. I highly recommend Florand's books!


Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, Google+ or in the comments below.

Review: THE PERILOUS LIFE OF JADE YEO by Zen Cho

Jade Yeo is making a meager living as a writer in 1920s London, when one of her reviews catches the attention of famous author Sebastian Hardie. Hardie is handsome, clearly into her, and also married. On the other side of the aisle is Jade's sweet and dependable editor, Ravi. Will Jade give in to temptation and curiosity, or will she follow her heart? And how does she make a living writing only two articles a month, that's what I want to know.

There is one major thing I like about The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo, and that's that it depicts a multicultural, historical London. Do you know how rare this is, people?? The novella's worth picking up just for that. Jade is from Malay (former English colony and modern-day Malaysia—thanks for that info, Google), Ravi is from India, and Sebastian is English. Not only are the characters from different places, but they have different sets of beliefs that influence their actions. For example, where Jade grew up it's normal for men to have several wives, and that definitely influences her interactions with Sebastian. The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo does an excellent job of showing how people can struggle to communicate when they're drawing from different cultural frames of reference.

I also kind of liked the tone of the novella, which is very Austen-esque. It's a comedy of manners, only instead of being set in the Regency era it's set in the 1920s. Most of the "action" consists of conversations in drawing- and ballrooms, and the characters are concerned with all the things someone in Austen's world would be: marriage, reputation, people's character, and so on. Zen Cho reinforces the Austen atmosphere with clever references to classics like Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and even The Yellow Room, so I think that's what the author was going for.

All that being said, to say I enjoyed this book would be—well, not exactly a lie, but not really the truth, either (warning: I'm about to get spoilerish). The Perilous Life Jade Yeo isn't that perilous; in fact, it's pretty predictable. Within the first few pages we know that 1. Ravi is Jade's true love, and 2. she's going to sleep with Sebastian. And we all know what happens when an unmarried heroine has sex in a novel.

Don't have sex, kids!

By the time the pregnancy went down I had pretty much lost all interest in the story, but even before that the novella moved very slowly. It only took a few hours to read, yet those hours felt like they were multiplying like rabbits in a cage.

Furthermore, the story isn't really a romance—it's a chick lit novella that's more about Jade coming of age than falling in love, the latter of which was a complete afterthought. I would be fine with that—and the fact that it all hinges on her losing her virginity—if there was a strong emotional evolution on Jade's part, but there isn't. She treats her affair with Sebastian very clinically from the beginning, even going so far as to describe, in completely unnecessary detail, his penis (was this an attempt on the author's part to prove that Jade has seen a penis? "I have seen the promised land, ladies! And it looks like 'a bulging cylinder of pink flesh,'" etc. etc. I'll spare you all the several paragraphs worth of commentary). I can understand if Cho wanted to keep Jade from falling for Sebastian so she doesn't seem like an idiot, but there's a reason why Lizzie falls for Wickham in P&P—so she can realize she was being an idiot! Unlike with Lizzie Bennet, there's no change in Jade from the beginning of her story to the end other than she gets pregnant. And even that's not a big deal, since Sebastian's wife is 100% okey dokey with him fathering children with another woman, and Ravi is 100% fine with his wife giving birth to another man's kid and then raising said kid. Hugs all around you guys!

Wait. You know what? Never mind, this IS a romance novel. Jade was turned into a woman by Sebastian's magical penis. MY BAD. Carry on.



Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, Google+ or in the comments below.

Giveaway & Review: WEAK AT THE KNEES by Jo Kessel

I received Weak at the Knees through TLC Booktours in exchange for writing an honestly honest review.

Before I start discussing this book, I want to let you all know about an awesome giveaway associated with the book tour. One lucky winner will receive a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a famous wine from the Rhône wine region of southeastern France. The giveaway is open internationally to those of legal drinking age. To enter, simply fill out this Google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13PQ8EBxNMtgk_JrkP391qhLCxtDUDioY1CLCq18IXlI/viewform

Now on to the review!

Danni's been dating the handsome and smart Hugh for eleven years, ever since high school. He lets her live in his flat even though she contributes nothing to the household expenses, has no job, is not going to school, and doesn't even have a consuming hobby. Meanwhile, he works his patootie off as a barrister. Not surprisingly, Danni is bored; and also unhappy, because she's never had an orgasm. Tiniest violin in the world! Maybe she should buy Hugh a manual or a diagram or something. Then her best friend suddenly comes down with a mortal illness and makes Danni promise her at her deathbed that 1. she's going to break up with Hugh, and 2. she'll never sleep with a married man. Because... science? So of course when her bestie dies, Danni breaks up with Hugh and sets off for the French Alps where the reader knows two things will definitely happen: she'll have an orgasm and get involved with a married man. And she does.

The above paragraph is basically Weak at the Knees' prologue, which clocked in at nearly 1/4th of the entire book (22%). It wasn't labeled a prologue, but that's sure as heck what it was. You all know how I feel about prologues, and especially how I feel about prologues not labeled as such. Quiz: what's the first rule of telling a story? Begin at the beginning! Really the only reason I kept reading was a morbid curiosity to see when the book would actually get started. Eventually it did, but it was still really boring because having an orgasm/affair isn't much of a plot. Also, by that point I disliked whiny Danni so much I wouldn't have cared if she took a header off a mountain.

Basically Danni has no agency in this novel. Does she do anything, period, at the start of the book? No. I'm probably supposed to take her leaving Hugh as a sign of agency, but why does she leave him? Because he "can't make you happy," according her best friend. Right. That might be because no one person can make another person happy. All Danni's decisions afterward are predicated by the actions of a man, from learning how to ski to having sex. Yeah, she may want to have sex with the guys, but the decisions are always ultimately theirs. The males drive the other action in the book, too: when Danni leaves France, for example, and even when she goes back.

I will admit I liked the meet-cute between her and Olivier du Pape, mainly because as soon as someone mentions he's married (which happens immediately) you know they're going to have sex. But the scene where they get together is kind of hilarious, and not in an intentional way. I loved it when Olivier was like, "I don't want you to ruin your life by having an affair with me!" Ruin her life, really? Someone's been reading a liiiiiittle too much Gustave Flaubert. And what's going to happen to Olivier's life in the meantime, business as usual? Nice dichotomy there. In any case, it's really hard to believe that there are any stakes involved in this extramarital affair because Olivier's wife is never there. Literally, she is never in town. We never meet her; I don't think we even ever know her name. Yet I found myself more sympathetic for her than for any other person in this book because she's the only one who's completely innocent of wrong doing and she gets shat on because Olivier and Danni find one another really, really attractive.

Melody from Redeeming Qualities wrote recently that one thing she loves about romance and adventure novels is "watching the author’s resultant struggle to steer the characters to a happy ending without in any way impugning their honor." This is not something Jo Kessel apparently struggled with in Weak at the Knees; all the characters acted dishonorably and in an expedient way to get what they wanted. Instead of caring about who she was hurting and whether or not it was worth it, Danni was mainly concerned that Olivier was taking advantage of her. It's a lovely world of narcissism and actions without consequences that these characters live in.

Weak at the Knees also had quite a few editing problems, but honestly I find the lack of storytelling and female agency in this novel more egregious. What story is being told here? Why should the reader care? These are basic questions that need to be addressed in any story.

Anywho, if you're still interested in giving Weak at the Knees a try, TLC Booktours is offering a paperback (US/Canada only) or eBook (international) copy of the book to one lucky reader! Just enter your name and e-mail into this handy-dandy Google form and I'll draw one winner using random.org on Friday, September 27th, and contact the winner by e-mail. All information will be kept private and deleted after the giveaway.





Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, Google+ or in the comments below.