Blog Tour - The Cosy Christmas Chocolate Shop by Caroline Roberts

Today I am really excited to take part in the blog tour to celebrate the publication of Caroline Roberts' new book, The Cosy Christmas Chocolate Shop. 

The snow is falling, the hot chocolate's warming, and hearts are melting . . .
Emma is the proud owner of The Chocolate Shop by the Sea, nestled in the heart of the cosy seaside village that's become her home. With Christmas right around the corner, she and her assistant Holly are busy cooking up the locals' festive favourites.
From cinnamon hot chocolates to reindeer lollipops, Christmas wouldn't taste the same without a little cocoa magic. And for Emma it's the perfect distraction from her romantic pains of the past. So when the shop's miserly landlord threatens to hike up the rent, Emma's Christmas and New Year suddenly look a lot less cheerful.
With the whole village rallying behind her - and loyal spaniel Alfie by her side - Emma's determined to hold onto her chocolate-box dream.
The chocolate calendar countdown is on. Can Emma rescue her business and her broken heart?

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780008236281             

Christmas is a time for everyone to indulge in everything and top of a lot of peoples' lists is chocolate. This book is a pure celebration of this tradition, a shop within a small village where chocolates are handmade and packaged to order, where villagers pop into the shop for their favourite chocolate of choice to enjoy after their evening meal or to give to loved ones as a present to say 'just thinking about you'. It is definitely not a book to read if the reader is on a diet or trying to cut down on chocolate before the festive period. Emma's handmade chocolates are described in great detail and the reader can almost smell the chocolates as she is making them. The publishers, Harper Impulse, and Caroline have very kindly shared with me a recipe for Emma's festive Chocolate Orange Truffles.

(Makes approx. 36)

Ingredients:

• 250g of good quality (at least 70%) dark chocolate 125ml fresh orange juice (or home squeezed even better) 150g caster sugar
• Zest of 1 orange
• 150g dark chocolate to decorate

Method:

1.            Finely chop the dark chocolate and place in a bowl.

2.            In a saucepan, bring the orange juice, sugar and zest to a simmer, and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

3.            Pour onto the chocolate and stir until melted.

4.            Chill until firm in a fridge (around 4 hours). 

5.            Scoop out a teaspoon of mixture and roll into a ball between the palms of your hands, place on a tray lined with greaseproof paper; repeat. 

6.            Melt the decorating chocolate gently in a bowl over hot water. Using a fork or cocktail sticks, dip the truffle balls into the melted chocolate to coat. It needs to be smooth but not too runny to coat the truffle centres properly; just allow to cool a little more if it seems to slide off.

7.            Transfer to greaseproof paper to set.

I really recommend this book to all my readers. It is the perfect book to read in the build up to Christmas. The book is set in a fictional seaside village, where the shop owners knew their regular customers by name, often knowing what they would be buying before they have asked. The Cosy Chocolate Shop is one of the shops within the village and is very popular. I wish I lived in the village, although I am sure that I would be a very regular visitor. Emma also has an assistant, Holly, who loves working in the shop almost as much as Emma, and she soon begins a relationship with the assistant manager of the local hotel - it is through this friendship that Emma begins to extend her business and tries to find ways of working with local businesses to promote the shop and her range of handmade chocolates. 

The book is based around the build up to Christmas and I really enjoyed watching Emma's thought process about building her business and her plans to extend her small shop to include a small coffee shop. It sounds like a great premises, an old cottage, which was refurbished to become a shop and the coffee shop was a great idea which also improved village life - a place for the older generation and younger, teenage generation could meet with their friends. 

Aswell as the story of the chocolate shop, and Holly's relationship, there is also a possible friendship for Emma, but of course it isn't plain sailing and I really enjoyed this part of the story, one which I don't want to spoil for my blog readers.

This book is very easy to devour in a weekend and it is one of those books that leaves the reader with a warm cosy, festive feeling.

Thank you to Harper Impulse and to Caroline Roberts for asking me to take part in the blog tour and for sharing the scrummy recipe for Chocolate Orange Truffles which I think I will be trying very soon.