It’s always lovely when Laura Florand does a giveaway to celebrate the release of a new book – because there’s often chocolate involved, and today is no exception!
To celebrate the release of All For You and the launch of her new series set in Paris, Paris Hearts, Laura Florand is offering a box of delicious French chocolates that she says are, “worthy of her chocolatier heroine Célie.”
Information about the book? But of course! Here is the cover copy:
Some crushes aren’t meant to be
When her older brother’s best friend left to join the Foreign Legion, eighteen-year-old Célie moved on to make a life for herself as a Paris chocolatier. Now, five years later, the last thing she needs is another man to mess up her happiness.
Let alone the same man.
But five years in the Foreign Legion is a long time for a man to grow up, and a long time to be away from the woman he loves. Especially when he did it all for her.
Half strangers, more than friends, and maybe, if Joss Castel has his way, a second chance…
But wait, there’s more: Chocolats du Cali Bressan was born out of romance when French chocolatier Jean-Michel Carre moved to California for the sake of his homesick American wife and they founded this shop. Laura has been hooked on his chocolates and his ever-amazing caramel Buddhas ever since her brother discovered the shop on a bike trip and sent her a box.
Laura says that it’s a pleasure to share his incredible chocolates with readers, so she’s giving away a box to one lucky person, along with a copy of her new book, All For You.
(Wow. Those are gorgeous.)
Standard disclaimers apply: I’m not being compensated for this giveaway (I do get to look at the picture and try to control my stomach growling, though!). Void where prohibited. Must be over 18 and prepared for decadent treats to win.
As usual with chocolate giveaways, this is only open to US residents (sorry, y’all) since fine artisan chocolates like this are very dependent on an individual chocolatier’s belief that they can be shipped in good condition to your address (and on no personal emergency interfering in his own chocolate making). Laura Florand reserves the right to replace with a box of similar value from a different chocolatier if it becomes necessary.
But for international residents outside the US, we have a prize for you, too. Laura will send a copy of All for You, print or digital, to you wherever in the globe you are! Alas, we cannot send chocolate, too, but we don’t want to leave you all out – that’s no fun.
To enter, please leave a comment below! Comments will close Friday May 8 at 12pm ET, and winner will be selected by random integer that same day.
(I’m still looking at that box of chocolates. How are the lips so shiny? How does that work?)
(I think I just gained a pound. Or three. Just from looking.)
Now Laura wants to know: What are some of your own favorite chocolates? Do you have a good chocolatier in your area? She’s always eager for more recommendations.
We have winners! The winner of the box of chocolates is Stephanie B. and the international winner of a copy of All For You is Tarja! Congratulations to the winners, and thank you for entering!
I’m a huge fan of dark chocolate with almond chunks.
No chocolatiers in my area that I know of! Maybe I should start looking around!
hershey’s
My very favourite chocolate is simple — from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (which is incredibly touristy, but I grew up in Denver, so they were everywhere) — dark chocolate haystacks. My mother made them when I was little, and they are the only place I have found where I can consistently get them. Also, I switched from milk to dark chocolate as I got older. (Warning: Haystacks have coconut, in case you didn’t know.)
I don’t know of any local chocolatiers in my area, which means I must start some investigating! There is a Godiva in the mall near me, so for now, that will have to tide me over…..
Some of my faves are milk chocolates involving peanut butter, maple, coconut, and/or caramel (the soft & gooey kind, not the hard-as-a-rock kind).
I love Cadbury chocolate, especially CurlyWurley. But it has to be proper British Cadbury chocolate not the nasty stuff they sell here in the US and call Cadbury but is not.
I grew up on Fannie Mae and Frangos, both now sad shadows of their former glory since their respective sales to other manufacturers. Now Chicago is home to Vosges, where all self respecting BDB fans get their chocolate/bacon fix. Expensive, but, it’s chocolate. For an everyday fix: Chocolove dark chocolate and orange or cherry bars or dark chocolate nonpariels from Trader Joes.
I am a sucker for chocolate + nuts combinations, particularly chocolate and peanut butter. I love making those chocolate covered peanut butter balls. Ghirardelli makes fantastic chocolate and if you’re lucky enough to live near one of their stores, you can also get sundaes and milkshakes and other wonderful treats.
Chocolate is such a wonderful indulgence. It is comforting and well just darn tasty.
I could gobble that box of chocolates this minute *.* well, one at a time 😉
Unfortunately I am from Portugal…but I would love to get my hands on a book copy!
I have decided that I really just like simple See’s chocolates.
It’s not local to me, but Esther Price chocolates in Dayton, Ohio is one of my favorites. I love their chocolate covered cherries, and we have a family tradition of opening a box of their assorted chocolates after Christmas dinner.
I’m a sucker for Trader Joe’s chocolates… they always have crazy flavors and make me like dark chocolate.
As a new resident of the Midwest, I’m actually looking forward to trying out some fantastic local chocolates that I’ve heard about.
There must be some good chocolatiers but I don’t know if them 🙁
Fannie May! An excellent Chicago tradition. My mom still gets me their chocolates on Valentines day
I’m really partial to the manon style of Belgian chocolates. There used to be a fabulous chocolate shop in Bastrop, TX called Roscar’s. Unfortunately it burned down during the huge forest fire in 2011, and the owners were unable to rebuild. So sad. But the chocolate was awesome.
Fazer from Finland
I love Harbor Sweets out of Salem, MA
Here’s the url (fingers crossed):
http://www.harborsweets.com/
The Sweet Sloops are to die for, as are the Harbor Lights.
I love dark/ bittersweet chocolate! I’m a bit of a foodie and love to bake, so I’m always on the lookout for new recipes. My favorite chocolate is of course, the truffle. Done well, something so simple as chocolate and cream turns into this wonderful amazing confection in your mouth. Like everything happy and right in the world! I don’t like most flavored truffles (buttercream, ew!), usually I’ll only accept coffee as a flavoring. No orange or raspberry, either! I find a lot of larger-scale chocolate shops tend to use substandard chocolate, which really gives a disappointment. Ghiradelli baking bars make really good homemade confections.
If you are ever in Oregon, look up Euphoria Chocolate in Eugene. Delicious! The truffles and chocolate covered Oreos are my favorite, although they had hand-dipped chocolate covered ice cream bars at one time that were just amazing! They also sold their truffle ganache by the tub. Like ice cream, only rich chocolate ganache. It was amazing.
I like chocolate covered marzipan from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (when I can find them). If not, Godiva sometimes has them, too.
The book sounds great!
Chocolate…Mmm…
Now that I’ve got that on my mind, I have to go make hot chocolate.
Also, if you haven’t read anything by Laura Florand, I would recommend her books in a heartbeat. The books she writes are fantastic! 😀
Oh, and about my favorite chocolates. Reading the books actually inspired me to look up and see if there were any local chocolatiers. I live in KY. Not the first place you think of when you hear the word chocolate. But after looking around for a bit, there is a place in Lexington called Cellar Door Chocolates. I’ve only tried a few of their chocolates, but the ones I did have were pretty good.
I meant Louisville, not Lexington >.<
I live in Southwest Florida, and they have Norman Love confections which are decadent and delicious. I am a huge Laura Florand fan, and I am looking forward to reading this book!
There are plenty of super fancy chocolate places around here, but i refuse to try them for fear I would become addicted. L. A. Burdick does make an iced hot chocolate that is AMAZING, but sometimes they refuse to make it with whole milk on the grounds that it’s too rich. (as if that’s possible.) I’m also a fan of Chocolove Orange Chocolate, which is chocolate with freeze dried orange zest in it, and there’s a Lake Champlain seasonal christmas chocolate, Spiked Caramels, which is the best thing ever.
OMG, these look amazing! Thank you, Ms. Florand, for the giveaway! We have the wonderful André’s Confiserie Suisse in Kansas City. They make pastries, chocolates, wedding cakes, have a restaurant, and I think they ship in the US. Now I need to go sometime this week after staring at all the chocolate! ~drools~ 🙂 http://andreschocolates.com/
Forgot to add that my favorites are anything with dark chocolate or marzipan (there’s a wonderful green marzipan/dark chocolate sushi roll-looking chocolate one at André’s), raspberry or orange liqueur, or coffee-flavored.
We have Gertude Hawks
Sad about the chocolate – but I totally understand! I’m living in New Zealand right now 🙂 Although, it is heading into winter with cooler temps, so maybe it could be sent? No? *sigh* I understand!
Laura’s books always remind me of my own love for chocolate, and the time I spent roaming the streets of Paris, indulging:)
Is that a pineapple chocolate I see? Interesting …
My town has a couple of chocolate shops but nothing high-end. I was a little sad after I read a Florand book and then checked out the local chocolate.
My favorite: anything with caramel. or salt. or that combines sweet and salty. or mint. or … yeah, I have a chocolate problem.
I have no idea where to find good chocolate in the area; my husband and I recently relocated and we’re still figuring things out.
Wow, those are beautiful chocolates. And how did they make the lips so shiny? Thank you for entering me in the contest.
I used to love getting chili-spiced chocolate in the Southwest!
I love the chocolates made by the people at a chocolate shop/cofee house I used to work at on Cape Cod. The Hot Chocolate Sparrow is in Orleans, MA (mid-Cape), and my favorites include Irish Cream truffles and Kahlua truffles. Another great chocolate shop on Cape Cod is the Candy Manor in Chatham, MA. Reading Laura Florand’s books makes me want to fly to France and spend large chunks of money gobbling chocolate. I’d settle for learning about more locally owned chocolate shops in CT, MA, NY, and RI. ^_^
I live in the boonies as far as even the possibility of a chocolate shop unless you count the petrol station and its assortment of violet crumbles and freddo frogs .But I make a dark chocolate stuffed with glacé ginger and salted caramel that is squee worthy in my opinion. I would love a copy of A Laura florand especially featuring a French legionaire
MMMMM…chocolate. It’s all good to me! For very special times, hubby brings me champagne truffles from his secret source!
Yum. Those chocolates look so good.
And so does the book.
I am from a small town and we are lucky enough to have a chocolate shop.
It is probably one of the busiest stores in town.
Almost too pretty to eat. Almost.