Sylvain throws a Gallic fit at the very idea of putting his name on a Corey Bar Cade labels him a "chocolate anarchist," since all she wants is to make his chocolate accessible to the masses. That chocolate battle is at the heart of the novel. Rather like "real" chocolate, as Sylvain would call it.
But despite all the complications, their relationship is explosive, sensual (including an outrageously sexy encounter set on a narrow flight of stairs) and utterly sweet. Their affair is complicated by a French blogger who launches a media frenzy about the bon-bon burglar, followed by a New York Times story that exposes Cade's identity. Sylvain is the first man she's met who is both completely uninterested in her billions and unshakably arrogant about his work - in other words, a classic romance novel hero.
Sylvain is entranced by the woman who would risk anything to taste his creations. (I don't want to put you off French chocolate for life: Sylvain covers all that cold marble with sweaters first). When she waltzes into the store at midnight for the second time, the inevitable happens : They make love on the marble counter used for rolling chocolate. Finally, she breaks in and steals four boxes of chocolate. Cade bribes her way into his chocolate-making class and he tosses her out again. Unfortunately, they won't even speak to her, and the top artiste in Paris, Sylvain Marquis, actually throws her out of his store after she asks him to collaborate on a line of "premium chocolates" with his name on it. Cade Corey is the heiress to a thinly disguised Hershey's-esque fortune, and she's determined to learn the secrets of the oh-so-snobby French chocolatiers. The plot of Laura Florand's The Chocolate Thief casts my cultural clash with my husband into high relief. I merely smirk: Hershey's kisses are sold all over Italy, summer or winter. If Alessandro accidentally puts pedestrian American chocolate into his mouth, he shivers all over like a toddler given an oyster. He's from Florence, Italy, and his favorite store - Scudieri on Piazza del Duomo - refuses to make chocolate when the weather is not conducive to a perfect texture. I think woe and joy are best addressed with chocolate, whether it is shaped into a kiss or comes from an Ecuadorian plantation. To my mind, given that the earth is our only source of chocolate, it hardly matters how the supply is cut off. Some despair at the idea the world will end in fire or ice.
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