A Recipe for Christmas by Jo Thomas

Clara Mackenzie’s idea of fun is to compete with her friends to see who can stuff most Lindor truffles into their mouth at once. When redundancy at thirty-nine turns her cosy but unfulfilling world upside down, her relationship with chocolate becomes more sophisticated. She moves to Switzerland with her new lover and enrols in a training course for chocolatiers.

From the beginning Clara and Daniel have problems. She is bored by his corporate colleagues and he does not take her course seriously. He is unable to grasp that after 23 years with the same firm, she wants to try something different. However, they persevere at trying to make things work, even after Clara moves out of their flat and into the hostel where other students on her course are staying.

As soon as Clara meets scary Madame Pichon, the manager of the prestigious Auclair chocolate school, she realises she is out of her depth. All the other participants already know the basics of chocolate making. Some of them give her a hard time, but Clara faces up to the challenge. While she works to improve her skills, unexpected support from moody top chocolatier Gabriel lifts her flagging spirits.

Author Jo Thomas writes authoritatively about friendship and romance. Her speciality is bringing the customs of different nations to life on the page by describing their landscape and cuisine. Her stories are also enlightening about the difficulties experienced by small businesses. In Countdown to Christmas she wrote engagingly about Canada and in A Recipe for Christmas she does the same for Switzerland. I recommend A Recipe for Christmas to everyone who enjoys a well written, amusing seasonal story which deals with real issues and has a feel-good conclusion.

I was given a copy of this book in return for an honest review.