Review: The Chocolate Rose (Amour et Chocolate #3) by Laura Florand

The Chocolate Rose by Laura Florand
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Publication Date: April 23rd 2013
My rating: 5 stars

Her father’s worst enemy... Top chef Gabriel Delange never forgave his old nemesis Pierre Manon for all the other chef had cost him. One stolen rose... And he most certainly couldn’t stand the sight of his own most famous dessert, the legendary Rose, claimed as Pierre’s own on the cover of his new cookbook. A substitute victim... But even Gabriel could hardly go through with a lawsuit when he learned the older chef had just had a stroke. Especially not when Pierre had one very cute daughter willing to be Gabriel’s victim instead. Jolie Manon... As a child, Jo had seen her family torn apart by her top chef father’s obsession with his work. She had given years of her own adult life to trying to pull him out of depression, after he lost a star. Now a food writer, she might be fascinated with a chef’s work, but she knew how to guard her heart. She would never allow another chef into her life. Unless he blackmailed her into it... Welcome to the heat and sun of Provence, where jasmine and roses climb up old colored walls, where fountains play in ancient stone villages, and where even a beast can prove he is a prince at heart…

She gritted her teeth, torn between the overwhelming desire to hit him and the one to completely give in, to be just -easy. Just go with it. Just get hauled of to somewhere dark and dangerous and growled at some more

I’m going to have to say that The Chocolate Rose has been my favourite book so far of the Amour et Chocolate series, I adored the first two books; The Chocolate Thief and The Chocolate Kiss, and the fantastic antagonistic relationships that Florand was able to weave into her stories, but Gabriel and Jolie’s story just had more of an impact on me.

Again like the previous books, something dire gets our MC Jolie to travel down to meet with Gabriel, what follows is a funny situation which provokes Jolie working in Gabriel’s kitchen for the morning. It’s obvious that’s there an instinct attraction between the two of them and this inextinguishable fire, but with so many hurdles, which could hurt Jolie in more ways than one I did have my doubts whether this relationship would work. But Gabriel really did make me believe. I loved the dual pov’s we were given again in this book, but more so because I truly fell for Gabriel and truly wanted to learn about his inner feelings, desires and secrets, basically everything about him. Gabriel was an arrogant person, but he did have every right to be, he’d lost a lot of his life a while back, but was able to jump back to his feet and make his way up into a very successful person and chef. But under that arrogance was also one of the most vulnerable love interests I had come across in this series so far. It was truly heart wrenching at times seeing him put his heart on the line time and time again, I could understand some of Jolie’s reservations, but on so many occasions Gabriel had demonstrated how much he truly cared about her. And really this was a relationship that Gabriel deserved ( they both really deserved) but then we were given snippets into his past love life or lack thereof, I felt like pushing Jolie out of the way so I could have him to myself, (he’d definitely made it to my list of fictional crushes, this guy just was totally swoon worthy). He was one of those characters who knew how to take care of his girl, yes he was eager to get further within his relationship with Jolie as soon as possible, some may see this as rushing too much, but who wouldn’t want a guy as hot as Gabriel wanting to involve you in his life as much as he could?. I lived seeing him get all defensive when Jolie would be spending time with another chef, but most of all I loved his growls, being a Chef pâtissier he was used to growling at his staff to get order in his kitchen, but when his growl was directed towards Jolie, *sigh* he was super hot!

What I loved the most about this book was even though there was all this heat and sexual tension running between Jolie and Gabriel, and all you want them to do is kiss some more and finally get together. You kind of forget that their relationship in this story only spans a couple of weeks. Some may consider this to be a bit insta-love, but Florand totally makes Gabriel and Jolie’s relationship work and believable; their feelings for each other are so deep and meaningful that it seems as if they’ve known each other for way longer!

Once again I loved the way the story was set in France, the setting certainly added to making the relationship between Gabriel and Jolie appear more romantic. With its gorgeous settings  I have truly fallen head over heels by this series by Florand so far, I don’t think anyone can top my love for Gabriel so far, but with Florand’s books I guess I shall just have to wait and see.

Favourite quotes:

"You're not in the way". A little growl slipped into his tone, rubbing all over his skin. "I told you. If I say you can be here you can be here"

"They'll agree to whatever I ask them to or we'll go somewhere else. We can share the last name, so it won't take up that much more space"

"I love the combination of roaring... and sweet"