Better Than Chocolate

Samantha Sterling has just taken over Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company, a family business in Icicle Falls, Washington. It has stayed in the Sterling family for generations, since Great-Grandma Rose dreamed up her first recipe. Now the bank is close to taking it, and losing it would hurt the whole town as well as the family.

Samantha is the oldest daughter, and after brainstorming with her mother and sisters she settles on a plan: a chocolate festival. The deadline is tight. The Sterling women are determined and the town backs them, so the preparations ought to go smoothly.

They do not. Events keep working against Samantha, and her mother's efforts to help only add to the trouble. The decision on the company's future rests with Blake Preston, the bank manager, who has football-hero good looks and is also her archenemy.

This is a romance with a light, comic tone, set in a small town and built around a family business. Samantha turns to chocolate when the pressure mounts, but Blake begins to persuade her that something else may be better still.