The Chocolatier

By: Jan Moran

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

In The Chocolatier, Jan Moran offers a testament to the resilience of love, along with insights into the fascinating world of chocolate-making.

A young widow. A husband she thought she knew. On the picturesque Italian coast of Amalfi lies a chocolatier’s destiny…

San Francisco, 1953: Heartbroken over the mysterious death of her husband, Celina Savoia, a second-generation chocolatière, resolves to take their young son to Italy’s shimmering Amalfi coast to meet his father’s family. Just as she embarks on a magical, romantic life of making chocolate by the sea surrounded by a loving family, she begins to suspect that her husband had a dark secret–forged in the final days of WWII–that could destroy the relationships she’s come to cherish.

While a second chance at love is tempting, the mystery of her husband’s true identity thwarts her efforts. Challenged to pursue the truth or lose the life and those she’s come to love, Celina and her late husband’s brother, Lauro, must trace the past to a remote, Peruvian cocoa region to face the deceit that threatens to shatter their lives.

©2020 Jan Moran (P)2025 Sunny Palms Press

The Chocolatier

A beautifully written historical romance. I found myself drawn into the story from the very beginning. The details and descriptions triggered fond memories of my past travels to both San Francisco and Italy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this presentation and will definitely be checking out more of Jan Moran’s writing and Erin Bennett’s narrations.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and I have voluntarily left this review.

Enjoyable read

The story was interesting and well written, but the last third dragged and got more and more unbelievable. Too many unlikely convenient coincidences. If you can suspend belief and enjoy the scenery, it is a pleasant read.

Great listen

I rarely write reviews but I really enjoyed this book. It was was such a pleasant listen.

Sweet Post WWII YA Romance

I'm going to start with the morality rating, if done on movie screen it would be PG13-R due to a couple sex scenes. Although they were not on the level of Fifty Shades of Grey, the two scenes were far less descriptive and tastefully done but still enough detail given to warrant a warning. So I recommend it as an 18+ read.

The story itself I felt was if anything a little too long but I still really loved the travel, the picturesque way she described Italy and the way the story unfolded. There's some back and forth in terms of flashbacks into a few of the characters past throughout the story which I really loved and is a fun way to help connect the dots in the secrets/mystery side of it. The narrator did an incredible job and was definitely fun to listen to.

—I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Very Inspiring

I really enjoyed the book especially because I’ve been to this part of Italy. However I thought it was longer than it needed to be but I enjoyed it anyway.