You Had Me At Chocolate

Amy Andrews

Nov 2021 · Marietta Chocolate Wars Book 2 · Tule Publishing

About this eBook

This Christmas, a childhood promise comes calling…

Clementine Hardy always wanted to be a librarian in her Marietta hometown. But at thirty, she fears she’s become too predictable—so she quits, books a European vacation, and accepts a research job in New York. Then on her birthday, a hunky piece of her past arrives, drops to bended knee, and proposes in front of half the town.

Bad boy celebrity chef Jude Barlow is done with the bright lights and late nights. He sells his Manhattan restaurant and volunteers in Africa to clear his head. A year later, he’s a new man with a new goal: find the girl from summer camp—the most practical woman he knows—and collect on the pinky promise they made when they were twelve.

Clem won’t marry a guy she hasn’t seen in nearly two decades, no matter how attractive or how talented he is in and out of her kitchen. But why does he have to look more delicious than the chocolate creations he concocts for the Graff Hotel? More delicious than anything in New York?

Ratings and reviews

Clementine always wanted to a librarian in her home town of Marietta and she's been very happy. But recently she's been feeling stuck in a rut and the urge to spread her wings so she's got a short-term job in New York and then she's going to do some serious travelling. Jude was a celebrity chef on a hit TV show (I'm thinking Gordon Ramsay style bad behaviour) until he realised that he was being encouraged into bad and self-destructive behaviours. So he quit his celebrity lifestyle, sold his New York restaurant and volunteered overseas. In a come to Jesus moment he decides what he wants is to open a restaurant in a small town, something like the inns he used to stay in with his parents as a child, where better than rural Montana, home of the little girl he met at Summer Camp all those years ago. Because he's a man, Jude decides nothing could be better than to marry said childhood friend, herself an antidote to all the glamorous models, actresses and wannabes he's dated/married in the past. So he proposes on bended knee in front of half the town! It seems as though that is that. Jude wants to settle down and live the small town life while Clem is ready to spread her wings, then Clem's mother has a stroke and her bright shiny plans are cancelled. Clem and Jude realise they can help each other. He will cook for her and her father while they travel to visit her mother in hospital, in return Clem will let him stay in her spare room and help him search for the restaurant property of his dreams. When Clem propositions Jude to help her forget her anxiety over her mother, they agree that this is a one-time thing, but as they spend more time together the lines seem to get a bit blurred. I liked it but I didn't love it, I just don't think I was in the mood for a sexy Hallmark movie style book TBH. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher Tule in return for an honest review.

About the author

Amy Andrews is the author of Risky Business, which won a 2015 Romance Writers of Australia (RWA) Romantic Book of the Year award in the category of Long Romance.