Loved this book. Great characters, easy read, uplifting, funny, romantic and charming. A really nice story that is the perfect sumer read.

I started this book, but didn't get very far. The premise seemed really interesting (chocolate, Paris, etc.), but I just couldn't get past the accident the protagonist has in the beginning chapters. It seemed like that was an unnecessary thing that really didn't have much to do with what the story was supposed to be. There seemed to be too much fixation on the protagonist's injury and the visual description thereof. [I am being purposefully vague, so as not to share a spoiler.] Maybe I'm just too squeamish, but it turned me off so much that I couldn't continue.

Another great read from Jenny Colgan. Her novels are usually about someone seeking a fresh start or going to a new place. In this novel, Anna Trent has a workplace accident and while in the hospital reconnects with her French teacher, Claire. Claire hooks her up with a job opportunity at a chocolate shop in Paris, where Anna goes for a change of scenery after her accident. The shop is owned by Thierry, an old friend of Claire’s. The two stories intertwine and come together in a beautiful ending. The writing is good, it’s an easy summer read and a great escape that makes you want to say yes to opportunities that come your way. Features recipes at the end of the book. 4/5 stars.

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris tells the story of Anna Trent who lives in a small town in the UK. After suffering a tragic accident in the local chocolate factory where she works, Anna receives the opportunity to travel to Paris and work in the world famous Le Chapeau de Chocolat run by well renowned chef Thierry Girard. The kicker is, Anna’s travel arrangements were made by her old French teacher, Mrs. Claire Shawcourt, who lived in Paris one fateful summer of her youth and fell in love with a young Chocolate maker just opening up his shop. Claire, who is terminally ill, would give anything to return and see her first love one last time.

I loved this book! The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris is so much more than the synopsis lets on. I loved how it is told in multiple time periods and view points. I feel like this makes it a fairly quick and engaging read. Everything about this book screams romance from the romantic location of Paris, Claire and Thierry’s love story, and Anna’s personal quest to find love and live with confidence after her accident.

The only I thing I didn’t like about this book was the ending. Yes, as a reader you know what’s coming, but it was so abrupt, and not really realistic at all. It ends suddenly and then the book just goes right into the epilogue. Overall though, I would strongly recommend this book, and I look forward to reading more by Jenny Colgan.

Jenny Colgan’s The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris is a fun and bittersweet read about love, friendship, and chocolate that will have you yearning for a lifechanging Parisian adventure. This is an easy read with a gorgeous setting and likeable characters but I wish the plot was slightly stronger and that Anna’s romance was more developed.

Anna is a supervisor in a chocolate factory in England until a terrible accident costs her some toes and her job. However, a renewed friendship with her old French teacher, Claire, sets Anna on a lifechanging path. Anna gets the opportunity to work in Paris at an elite chocolatier with boisterous Thierry, Claire’s former sweetheart. Anna makes friends, finds romance, learns to make gourmet chocolate and, more importantly, finds herself. The book also tells Claire’s story including her adventurous summer in Paris and her passionate teenage love affair with Thierry. She is dying from cancer and yearns to revisit Paris and reconnect with Thierry.

I was expecting a fluffy throwaway read but this is a heart-warming and insightful book. There’s sweet romance but Colgan includes heavy issues like self-discovery and the sad reality of Claire’s cancer. The plot is predictable at times but it is entertaining and well-paced.

Anna is a caring and relatable protagonist. I love watching her blossom and find herself. I love experiencing Paris through her eyes. Her journey is a realistic balance of failures and successes. Anna and Claire have a sweet and supportive relationship. Kind and resilient Claire will remind you of the dedicated high school teacher who always believed in you. Her battle through cancer and her relationship with her ex-husband made me cry.

I like the other characters, particularly jolly chocolatier Thierry and Anna’s fabulous roommate Sami. However, Anna’s love interest and Thierry’s estranged son Laurent is a little flat. I didn’t truly buy the relationship between Anna and Laurent. More time should have been spent meaningfully building their connection. However, the teenage romance between Claire and Thierry is gorgeously written and moving. I could clearly see how their relationship affected them decades later.

Colgan’s writing is light and approachable. The vivid descriptions of Paris instantly transport me there. However, the writing could have been stronger. The language and the characters’ attitudes are sometimes outdated and off-putting—I shuddered at the use of ‘transvestite’. I also hate the jarring anti-fat sentiment that permeates the book.

I love reading from both Claire and Anna’s perspectives. However, Colgan sometimes briefly enters other point-of-views like Laurent and Thierry. This really takes you out of the book. It doesn’t make sense because you never see from their perspective again. Additionally, there are too many plot points to properly explore which results in underdeveloped situations like Laurent’s estrangement from his father as well as Anna and Laurent’s instant love.

I also wish there was more about the chocolate making process and gourmet chocolates because the book felt a little light on this front. The included recipes are nice but they don’t match the book at all so it would be better if they were left out.

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris is a charming read filled with friendship, self-discovery, love, and chocolate. I cried and laughed my way through this moving book. I do wish that certain aspects of the writing, plot, and characters were a little stronger. However, I really liked and would recommend this book. I can’t wait to read more of Jenny Colgan’s work!


🍫🍫🍫🍫 chocolate bars out of 5!

Lovely feel good read for me. Easy to read. Easy to fall in love with. Close my eyes and I was right there with them. Nice location and storyline what’s not to love

What a lovely book. I have read many Jenny Colgan books and this one was true to form. I became lost in the beauty of Paris! I felt as if I was with Anna discovering the city and its people. I will say the food descriptions were amazing. Also, the end of this book has luscious chocolate recipes! A great read!

Not my favorite Jenny Colgan book. I couldn't connect with Anna or Claire and the story didn't flow as well between their two stories.

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan was a nice story. Anna Trent, injured while at work at a chocolate factory, wakes up in the hospital to discover she has lost more than she thought. But while in the hospital she is reunited with Claire, the French teacher she had years ago. The two form a great friendship during their stay in the hospital. Claire’s story is told in an alternate storyline usually at the end of each chapter. Claire had a great love, Thierry, who is also a chocolatier, one of the greatest in Paris. When Anna goes to work for him, she meets his son, Laurent. This story was a different story than I’m used to from Jenny Colgan. Usually, the protagonist builds her small business after losing her job, affects the community around her, and finds love. In this story, while Anna has lost her job, she goes to work for Thierry, and while she does find love, she doesn’t really affect the community at all. I enjoyed this book; Jenny Colgan is a favorite author of mine. However, it was not my favorite of hers.

Thank you to the publisher for a free e-copy in exchange for an honest review. #netgalley #theloveliestchocolateshopinparis

I loved the concept of the book - young adult woman who had an awful accident meets her old French teacher in hospital (who has cancer), teacher takes woman under her wing, arranges for her to go to Paris and start her life fresh. I enjoyed the people the characters and it made me desperately want to go back to Paris. I just felt that the book had a few missing pieces in it and it was left up to the reader to try and figure it out - it also moved quite slowly in parts which was hard for me to plow through. Overall, I really did enjoy the characters and the storyline, especially the part about making the chocolate!

I thought this was lovely and sweet, although the main character's horror at being thought of as fat was off-putting..

Jenny Colgan has a knack for really transporting you into the beautiful locals she writes about in her novels reading this book just made me even more eager to visit Paris one day and man what a wonderful job creating chocolate! Anna the main character in this story makes some choices that aren't the best but you still yet can't help but root for her! To me this book really showed the important and benefit of hard working and putting your all into your passion even if you don't have as many degrees or learning in that field as others if you truly love what you do it will show through in your work! A charming story that sweeps you right into the streets of Paris and gives you a sneak peek of life in the culinary field

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this digital ARC.
I've read one book from Jenny Colgan before and I was a big fan of it. I felt like I could immerse myself into the world and get connected so I was looking forward to this one.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the same experience with this one. It took a long time for me to get into the story and there was no character I really loved enough. While the story is sweet and has some heart, it didn't feel like it was as in-depth as it could have been. There was a lot of potential but something was missing. There were two love stories in one with it but I think it would have been better to concentrate on the older love story and give the reader more to it than split it in half. I would have liked to read more about the chocolate making process and the shop itself than the drama surrounding the whole place. While the writing was still good, the story wasn't as straight-forward as it could have been. I've seen what Jenny Colgan is capable of so I feel like she could have stepped it up with this one. While I still enjoyed the story to give it 3 stars, it wasn't enough to get anything higher.

Not a favorite. It took too long for me, personally, to get connected to the story. There is a sadness to this book that I didn't find in her others. It is a light read, I will give it that. But overall I didn't get a warm feeling that I had expected.

Not her best effort.

I liked a lot of the story, because it’s easy to like chocolate and Paris. But I don’t love the flashback storytelling, and I didn’t feel super connected with the characters. What really ruined this for me was the incessant, constant fat-shaming. It started early on and continued consistently throughout. Whether it was commenting on main characters or passers by or the main character’s horror at possibly being viewed as fat, this bizarre and distracting fat-phobic obsession utterly ruined the book.

A few examples:

“But he looks like a gigantic pig” (why would someone like him?)
“I wasn’t sure I liked that either, being lumped in with the massive fatties” (oh no you like eating chocolate what a moral conundrum)

This is just within a couple of pages. There are dozens of examples. I found it shocking and unnecessary and frankly quite cruel. Be better, Jenny Colgan.

A feel good read about a young woman, forced to change her life, who goes to work in a chocolate shop in Paris. What's not to like? The subject matter is delicious and the setting is one of the most iconic in the world. Readers will delight in the story and the outcome.

I’m sorry, but I was unable to finish this book. I just wasn’t able to be pulled in. I wasn’t able to connect with the characters. I wish the author, and publisher, much success upon release day.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book combines two of my favorite things: Paris and chocolate. Add a heartwarming story by Jenny Colgan, and it's the perfect read. I liked the way the story unfolded in parallel, between Claire in the 1970s as an au pair in Paris, Claire in the present day, and Anna in the present day. I don't want to give too much away, but can say that both Claire and Anna find life in Paris revelatory and life-changing, and as the story unfolds you realize how their stories are linked - both in new beginnings and endings.

A quick and satisfying read, with both bittersweet and happy endings.

Paris, chocolate, food and love....what a charming story! I enjoy Jenny's books, this wasn't my all time favorite but I do recommend!

Anna, from a small, rather dull village in Britain, has just been in the hospital. There, she encounters a former teacher, Claire, who helps her get a job in Paris. Anna is later able to return Claire's kindness in an unexpected way. The book alternates chapters between Claire's summer in Paris 40 years ago and Anna's current experiences, and we get a feel for how living in Paris changes these two young English women. There are recipes at the end, and I confess that I did feel like eating chocolate as I read. Sometimes you want to read a well-written book with likable characters, a beautiful setting, and a happily ever ending--nothing too unpleasant or stressful, just pure enjoyment. The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris fits the bill perfectly.