In this Cinderella story, young Rosamund Tomkins grows up working hard for her callous stepfather in an ale house in the mid-1600s. Sir Everard Blithman, whose carriage knocks her down as the merchant travels, decides to take the charmingly pretty young woman back to London. Rosamundβs mother, who bore the girl as a result of an affair with a nobleman, insists on a wedding. So Ros becomes THE CHOCOLATE MAKERβS WIFE.
While her circumstances are much improved, the young woman is barely literate and without friends in the bustling city. Sir Everard, much older and infirm, has his staff instruct her in running his new chocolate drinking house venture, like a coffee house, where men of means would meet and discuss news or hold auctions. This is where Ros makes the acquaintance of a certain wordsmith, Matthew Lovelace, who seems pleasant but secretly bears no love for her new family. Her past family hasnβt forgotten her newfound wealth. And as rumours of plague drown out even political and war debates, it seems possible that not all of her acquaintances will survive.
The proliferation of detail is excellent throughout this story, the result of much research by Tasmanian author Karen Brooks. Be warned that language of the day is peppered through conversations; I was surprised to meet a strong word right at the start. However, if you can tolerate this, youβll learn how to make the sumptuous chocolate drink from slabs of compressed cacao, milk and herbs, and discover the contrasting living conditions in overcrowded, unsanitary London.
One frequently appearing character is Navy clerk Samuel Pepys, the real-life diarist, whom the author borrows as a cousin to the Everards in order to bring along his gossip, royal insights and genuine heroic deeds. The author also addresses the perils of being a member of a religion not royally approved and of being a slave, combining these issues in a pair of characters to keep the cast list short. Very few people had genuine freedom to live as they wished, and women, even well-off ones, had less freedom than men. Β
If you have read The Apothecaryβs Daughter and The Spice Merchantβs Wife you will have formed a good impression of London and its trades at this period, also its perils, plagues and the Great Fire. If you canβt get enough of such reading, then you need THE CHOCOLATE MAKERβS WIFE.
Australian bestselling novelist Karen Brooks rewrites women back into history with this breathtaking novel set in 17th century London—a lush, fascinating story of the beautiful woman who is drawn into a world of riches, power, intrigue…and chocolate.
Damnation has never been so sweet...
Rosamund Tomkins, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, spends most of her young life in drudgery at a country inn. To her, the Restoration under Charles II, is but a distant threat as she works under the watchful eye of her brutal, abusive stepfather . . . until the day she is nearly run over by the coach of Sir Everard Blithman.
Sir Everard, a canny merchant, offers Rosamund an “opportunity like no other,” allowing her to escape into a very different life, becoming the linchpin that will drive the success of his fledgling business: a luxurious London chocolate house where wealthy and well-connected men come to see and be seen, to gossip and plot, while indulging in the sweet and heady drink.
Rosamund adapts and thrives in her new surroundings, quickly becoming the most talked-about woman in society, desired and respected in equal measure.
But Sir Everard’s plans for Rosamund and the chocolate house involve family secrets that span the Atlantic Ocean, and which have already brought death and dishonor to the Blithman name. Rosamund knows nothing of the mortal peril that comes with her new title, nor of the forces spinning a web of conspiracy buried in the past, until she meets a man whose return tightens their grip upon her, threatening to destroy everything she loves and damn her to a dire fate.
As she fights for her life and those she loves through the ravages of the Plague and London’s Great Fire, Rosamund’s breathtaking tale is one marked by cruelty and revenge; passion and redemption—and the sinfully sweet temptation of chocolate.
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