Publishing Date: January 28, 2020
Publisher: Goldmann (German), Sunny Palm Press (World English), Newton Compton (Italian)
Number of Pages: 381
ISBN-13: 978-1951314026
A young widow. A husband she thought she knew. Will a chocolatier’s secret destroy the family left behind?
San Francisco, 1953: Heartbroken over the mysterious death of her husband, Celina Savoia, a second-generation chocolatière, resolves to take their young son to Italy’s shimmering Amalfi coast to introduce him to his father’s family. Just as she embarks on a magical, romantic life of making chocolate by the sea surrounded by a loving family, she begins to suspect that her husband had a dark secret—forged in the final days of WWII—that could destroy the relationships she’s come to cherish.
While a second chance at love is tempting, the mystery of her husband’s true identity thwarts her efforts. Challenged to pursue the truth or lose the life she’s come to love, Celina and her late husband’s brother, Lauro, must trace the past to a remote, Peruvian cocoa region to face the deceit that threatens to shatter their lives.
In The Chocolatier, Jan Moran, bestselling author of the Summer Beach series, The Winemakers and Scent of Triumph, offers a testament to the power of forgiveness and the resilience of love.
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Read an Excerpt from The Chocolatier
San Francisco, 1953
One chocolate truffle had changed her destiny. Indeed, it was one of Celina’s best—a silky cocoa powder-dusted truffle filled with raspberry-infused, dark chocolate ganache and enrobed with a couverture, a layer of rich chocolate that melted optimally with the warmth of the body.
After she had offered one to a weary, dark-haired soldier who had just returned from the European front, he introduced himself as Tony Savoia, an Italian immigrant whose family had owned and operated Cioccolata Savoia before war rationing had made sugar difficult to obtain. The truffle had restored light to his eyes. Though she knew little else of the charming, impetuous man who wooed her with murmurs of love, they married within a few months.
“That’s right. Cioccolata Savoia in Naples, Italy,” Celina said to the international operator, trying to keep the crack of emotion out of her voice. She repeated the foreign telephone number to the world-renowned chocolate company and hung up. The operator would call back when the connection was ready.
A telegram wouldn’t do, not for this type of news.
Anxious to reach Tony’s father, Celina had waited until midnight to place a call to his company. She perched on a little wooden chair in the narrow hallway of the tiny apartment near Union Square, poised to answer quickly to keep the trilling ring from waking her young son. Turning up the collar of her flannel robe against the chill night air that bathed her neck, she clutched a piece of notepaper and gazed out the living room window at the city lights that lined the sloping hillside street as it fell toward the bay. The brightly lit sign of Ghirardelli, the chocolaterie that had been serving up chocolate for the past hundred years in San Francisco, illuminated the Golden Gate Strait. How many times had she gazed at that sign, a beacon of what she, too, might achieve with hard work? Yet now, her future seemed as foggy as the mist hovering over the city.
Months ago, Celina had written to her husband’s family in Italy, notifying them as she felt she should, regardless of Tony’s strained relationship with his parents. Just as he’d warned her, they had never replied. Had they even received her letter? She felt a duty to inform them, as well as reaching out on behalf of little Marco—her son and their grandchild—even though Tony had always forbidden contact with them. That had been his only rule.
She drew a trembling hand across her forehead. Six months. How could that be? Every day since then had been an exercise in suppressing her grief to get through the day. She felt adrift without her husband, without a real home or family. Through the open window, foghorns bleated in the distance as if to signal danger in the murky depths of her memories.
A second letter she’d sent to Tony’s parents had also been returned to her just last week. Invalid address. Undeliverable. She’d even wondered if his parents were still living, though she knew his family’s company had resumed operations in Italy after the war. Among connoisseurs of chocolate, Cioccolata Savoia was famous. From Torino to Amalfi, experts lauded the family’s legendary chocolatiers for fusing the smooth, delicate flavor of Criollo chocolate with Sorrentino and Amalfitano lemons. Chocolate aficionados around the world had celebrated the reopening.
When the telephone jangled on the wall, Celina snatched the receiver. “Hello?”
About the Author:
Jan Moran is a USA Today bestselling author of women's fiction. She writes stylish, uplifting, and emotionally rich contemporary and 20th-century historical fiction. Midwest Book Review and Kirkus have recommended her books, calling her heroines strong, complex, and resourceful. Jan studied writing at the UCLA Writers Program, sailed on Semester at Sea, and graduated from the University of Texas and Harvard Business School. She lives near the beach in Southern California. Visit her at JanMoran.com and join her Reader's Club newsletter to download a free novella.
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