It is Valentine's week. For some, the 14th is a day to look forward to. A day to celebrate your love. Maybe you'll receive a gorgeous box of chocolates from your fabulous boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife. You might even get a box from a secret admirer…
Or maybe it is a day to be endured. Maybe you feel a bit Bridget Jones and are worrying about dying all alone and being 'found three weeks later half-eaten by alsatians'.
Whatever the situation, chocolate is always there to help. Does chocolate cure everything and anything? Well, no. But it can provide a great deal of comfort and deliciousness. And what could be better than real chocolate combined with fictional chocolate. Yum. Here are my ten books.
1. Chocolat by Joanne Harris – Vianne Rocher and her daughter arrive in a French village and open a chocolate boutique to the disgust and anger of Father Reynaud. After all, it is Lent. Chocolate becomes sinful.
2. The Chocolate Lovers' Club by Carole Matthews – Lucy, Autumn, Nadia and Chantal are chocolate addicts and form the Chocolate Lovers' Club. A story of four friends brought together with chocolate.
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl – ok this might be a children's book but probaby the first book about chocolate we all read and dreamed about. Who didn't wish for a golden ticket or a chocolate lake?
4. Chocolate Wishes by Trisha Ashley – most books by Tricia sound good enough to eat. Chocolate Wishes is about chocolatier Chloe, busy dispensing sweets along with predictions. Then there is a new vicar, who turns out to be an ex- rock god…and from Chloe's past.
5. The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson – described as a novel about lust, love and chocolate what else do you need to know?
6. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams by Jenny Colgan – Rosie's feisty Aunt Lily, proprietor of Lipton's village sweetshop, needs Rosie's help. So Rosie leaves her man, Gerard and goes to stay with her.
7. The Chocolate Kiss by Laura Florand - Magalie has been building up her reputation in the art of chocolate making in Paris. But then a famous pastry chef opens up nearby and threatens to take some of her business.
8. The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan – another one by Jenny Colgan. It isn't out until March this year but with a title like that how could I not put it in the list? Former chocolate factory worker, Anna Trent, is now making chocolates in a little chocolate shop for the grandes dames of Paris. This book also includes recipes.
9. The Chocolate Lovers' Diet by Carole Matthews – a return to the characters from the Chocolate Lovers' Club.
10. Men, Money and Chocolate by Menna Van Praag – an autobiographical novel about a woman who longs to be a writer but lacks the self confidence.