Review: Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts

Summary/Cover Image from Goodreads:

Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company has been in the Sterling family for generations, ever since Great-Grandma Rose literally dreamed up her first fabulous recipe. But now it looks as if they're about to lose Sweet Dreams to the bank—and that would be a disaster, not only for the family but for the town of Icicle Falls, Washington. Can Samantha, the oldest daughter and new head of the company, come up with a way to save it?

After Samantha does some brainstorming with her mother and sisters, inspiration strikes. They'll have a chocolate festival! Time's running out, but the Sterling women are determined and the town's behind them, so everything's bound to go smoothly….

Or not. Events seem to be conspiring against Samantha, and her mother's attempts to help aren't helping. To make matters worse, the fate of her company is in the hands of her archenemy, Blake Preston, the bank manager with the football-hero good looks. It's enough to drive her to chocolate. But Blake's also enough to convince her that (believe it or not) there's something even better than chocolate.

Review:

I'm a sucker for corny and sweet romance/chick lit reads, so when Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts ended up in my TBR pile, I couldn't wait to get started on it. It sounded adorable! Plus I loved that it had a small town setting. Luckily, Better Than Chocolate was just like the chocolate it described- sweet and addicting!

Better than Chocolate tells the story of Samantha Sterling, a girl's been having the worst luck lately. It all started several months ago when Samantha's mother placed Samantha's stepfather in charge of Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company, their family business, instead of the more obvious choice: Samantha. It's not that Waldo isn't nice or caring- he is- but he's not the best business leader out there. So when Waldo suddenly falls dead, Samantha's left to clean up his mess piece by piece. It doesn't help that her mother is in a near catatonic state of depression, or that Blake, the new bank manager, seems to be hindering Samantha's every move. However, thanks to the help of her friends and sisters, Samantha comes up with a plan to save her failing business... but will it be enough?

Samantha was a character I adored from the start. She was sweet and sensible. Plus I loved seeing her relationships with her friends and family. Each added an important part to her character development. My favorite part about Samantha, though, was how determined she was to save her business. It wasn't an easy task, especially with all the obstacles that were in her path, but she always tired her hardest, and that counted for a lot, in my opinion. I also enjoyed finding more out about Blake, Samantha's love interest/nemesis. Blake may of had a hard outer shell, but inside he was quite the softie, and because of this, I always loved when a scene with him popped up. The rest of the Icicle Falls was just as great. It was fun to get to know everyone, and I can't wait to find out more about them all in future additions of the Icicle Falls series.

As you can probably imagine, the plot in this was predictable and not all that intricate, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was fun to see the inter workings of a chocolate factory, even if it did make me crave chocolate. Plus, I liked how Sheila placed such an important part on this one family and friendships. It was a refreshing change to the average romance read, especially since every character was a ton of fun to read about. The only thing I really didn't like about this one, though, was the occasional slow moments. Sometimes a scene seemed to drag and drag. However, besides, Better Than Chocolate was a decent read.

In all, Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts is an adorable read! I highly suggest it to fans of the chick lit/romance genres as well as fans of novels featuring strong family relationships and friendships. Word of warning  though: you'll probably want some chocolate on hand when reading it! ;)

Grade: B 

Better Than Chocolate (Amazon/ Barnes and Noble/ Goodreads) is now out!