This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR
Chloe Lyon spends her days typing chapters for her grandfather, Gregory Warlock’s latest novel, Satan’s Child, and running her own business selling Chocolate Wishes. She doesn’t believe in her grandfather’s magic, but doesn’t like to take chances so chants the wording of an ancient Mayan charm over her chocolate melting pot just as he has instructed her to do, before enclosing the wishes inspired by her Angel card readings inside the chocolate. Despite her lack of belief in his magic, she is unable to ignore that sales have improved dramatically, but is more inclined to put this down to customers ordering over the Internet and extra advertising in a magazine.
Years before, Chloe left university after one term to bring up her half-brother Jake, who was abandoned by their mother when she set off after her latest boyfriend. Unable to return to university to explain her reasons for leaving so suddenly to her boyfriend, Raffy Sinclair, Chloe gives her friend Rachel a letter to pass on him. However discovering from Rachel that not only did Raffy not bother reading her letter, but also that he then slept with Rachel, Chloe has never been able to forgive him. Unfortunately, the success of his rock band and the continuous playing of his records over the radio and reports of his activities in the newspapers over the years has ensured that she has also been unable to forget him.
Now her grandfather has designs on buying a property in Sticklepond. He intends starting a museum dedicated to the study of witchcraft and paganism, whilst ensuring there’s room for Zillah, her dead grandmother’s cousin and also a cottage at the other end for Chloe and Jake to make their home. It also means she will live closer to her two best friends, Poppy, a riding instructress and Felix, a second-hand book dealer, whose mothers were also in the same dance troupe as Chloe’s mother when they were much younger.
The only downside to the move is the discovery that the new vicar is none other than Raffy Sinclair. The reappearance of not only her ex-lover, but also her ex-fiancé, David, who practically jilted her by changing his mind about their wedding six years previously, makes Chloe determined that unlike the rest of the villagers, she will not be making the vicar, or David, with his proposed move to the country, very welcome.
Will Chloe fall for David’s charms again like he seems so intent on her doing? Can she forgive Raffy for what he did to her all those years ago and will she ever tell him why she was so heartbroken? Can she change her opinion of Raffy and believe like everyone else that this ex-rock God is a changed man only wanting what’s best for the village and those who live in it? And did her mother die like some people seem to believe, or will she ever return?
I love Trisha Ashley’s books and Chocolate Wishes was as enjoyable as I’d hoped it would be. She brings her characters to life so well and the conflict between Chloe’s past as it begins to infiltrate with her present, is great fun.
Definitely 10/10
