Chocolate Wishes

by Trisha Ashley

[Leah]

Chocolate maker Chloe Lyon has recently moved to Sticklepond along with her grandfather Grumps, brother Jake and Zillah, her Grandmother’s cousin. Her business Chocolate Wishes is going from strength to strength and the only part of Chloe’s life that isn’t perfect is her love life. Her heart was broken as a teenager by Raffy Sinclair, who went on to become a huge rock star, and then years later, Chloe found herself being jilted practically at the altar. However, when a new vicar arrives in town, it seems as if Chloe’s life is about to get a little bit more difficult because the vicar is none other than Raffy Sinclair. Is Raffy still the same Raffy who broke Chloe’s heart, or is it possible that he’s changed? Better yet, is Chloe even over Raffy’s betrayal?

Until last year I’d never actually heard of Trisha Ashley until I was offered the chance to read her last book Wedding Tiers. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the book and when I heard the synosis for her 2010 release, Chocolate Wishes, I became even more excited; a book about chocolate is always going to win me over, I’m afraid. I eagerly awaited it’s release and was pleased to receive a copy a few weeks ago in my mailbox! I was reading something at the time but knew I was going to start it as soon as I had finished with the book I was reading.

As well as telling the tale of a chocolate maker the plot also has lots of other strands. Namely magical-type strands. I am in no way interested in paganism or witchcraft or anything of the sort – in fact, the whole thing boggles my mind – so when we first learn of Chloe’s grandfather’s beliefs, I was very worried. I have no idea, even after reading the book, what on Earth it is that Chloe’s grandfather believes in. I am in no way religious so everything relating to paganism and witchcraft went right over my head. Even less interesting to me was Chloe’s interest in angel cards, tarots cards and things like that. Again, that is something I am totally disinterested in and I can’t say I totally believe in the entire card reading thing. To my dues, I read the book with as much open-mindedness as possible, and I must say that Ashley did offer an interesting perspective on everything but as I said above, it all just went above my head.

One thing I did really enjoy was the chocolate making part of the plot. I’ve never read a book that has it’s heroine as a chocolate maker and it sounds like a fascinating process. Trisha Ashley must have really done her research on the art of chocolate making and she made it sound fantastic. All of the pages that involved chocolate making held my attention beautifully and I must admit that, when reading the back of the book, I thought that was all the plot would have to offer. As far as my ignorance towards religion goes, that wouldn’t have been a bad thing for me.

Another huge plus point about the book for me was the friendship between Chloe, Poppy and Felix. It was a hugely believeable friendship and I could totally see why Felix seemed to be besotted with Chloe. Like Chloe, though, I thought Felix and Poppy would be perfect together and wondered if they would ever realise they were made for each other. All three friends were immensely likeable and Chloe as our lead character sounds like the kind of person you would want to be friends with. In fact, all three of them would make some pretty fantastic friends. I really liked Chloe’s brother Jake, too, whom she brought up single-handedly as their mother was really quite flighty and was rarely around for the two of them. Even though their religious beliefs confused me, I did quite like Grumps and Zillah. They were both a bit wacky and had entirely different views on things but they were still great characters. I don’t really know what I made of Raffy, the man who broke Chloe’s heart when she was a teenager, and came back into her life when he became Sticklepond’s new vicar. I am not in any way religious so whenever a book includes someone who is a slave to God I never really know what to make of him/her. I appreciated Raffy’s beliefs and I know religion is important to some people but it’s not something I particularly like reading about.

I liked returning to Sticklepond and I like how Ashley keeps all of her characters in or around the same village. Christina Jones also does this and I always marvel at how they manage to weave all of the characters stories together and manage to bring old characters back. As well as the plots mentioned above, the entire reason for the Lyons’ move to Sticklepond was so Grumps could open a museum. That opened up an old rivalry between Grumps and a man named Mann-Drake. Again my ignorance belies me and I have no idea what that rivalry was truly about. I can’t say I know how that particular rivalry ended as I found myself skipping the parts where paganism/witchcraft/etc was mentioned as I just couldn’t keep up with all of the different parts that I truly had no idea about.

I did enjoy Chocolate Wishes but I can’t rate it any higher than I have because of the simple fact that, for the most part, I was entirely confused. It may well show my ignorance toward religion and all of the different beliefs people have but if something doesn’t interest me, it doesn’t interest me and I’m not going to pretend to like it when I honestly don’t. Trisha has written another readable story but if religion isn’t your thing then I wouldn’t recommend you read it as, like me, you may find yourself confused. Those interested in paganism and witchcraft will undoubtedly love the book. For me, though, as much as I love Trisha’s books, Chocolate Wishes just wasn’t for me.