The Chocolate Maker's Wife

A tale of cruelty, revenge, redemption, love and hope, and the sweet, sinister temptation of chocolate.

Damnation has never been so sweet...

When Rosamund Tomkins enters the world she is so different, with her darkling eyes and strange laughter, that the midwives are afraid, believing her a changeling. But Rosamund's life is set to be anything but enchanted.

Born into poverty, brutalised and ignored by her family, it is only when she is married off to a nobleman that her life undergoes a wondrous transformation. Clever, quick and irrepressible, Rosamund soon becomes the darling of the haut ton, and presides over her luxurious chocolate house where the rich go to be seen and indulge in their favourite pastime, drinking the sweet and heady drink to which they've become oddly addicted.

But in the shadows a web of conspiracy is spinning. The return of a man from the past brings Rosamund into mortal peril and up to the brink of destruction. As she fights for her life and those she loves through the ravages of the Plague and London's Great Fire, Rosamund begins to realise she will be forced to make a choice: walk away from all she knows and has grown to love with her soul intact, or make a deal with the devil...

Australian author Karen Brooks rewrites women back into history with this sweeping, breathtakingly researched tale of 17th century London, set against the backdrop of Restoration London, the plague and the Great Fire.

About the Author

Karen Brooks is the author of thirteen books, an academic of more than twenty years' experience, a newspaper columnist and social commentator, and has appeared regularly on national TV and radio. Before turning to academia, she was an army officer for five years, and prior to that dabbled in acting. She lives in Hobart, Tasmania, in a beautiful stone house with its own marvellous history.

When she's not writing, she's helping her husband Stephen in his brewery, Captain Bligh's Ale and Cider, or cooking for family and friends, travelling, cuddling and walking her dogs, stroking her cats, or curled up with a great book and dreaming of more stories.