Delicious Conversation, by Jennifer Stewart Griffith - A Review

Chick-lit sounds like choc-late, and this chick-lit is about choc-late. Before I go any further, I have to state that we all know that chick-lit romances are lite fare (and no one knows better than I, because I’ve written a couple). They are fluffy avenues through which readers (harried mothers and stressed-out employees--or bosses, for that matter) can escape to an assured happy ending. Within those parameters, Delicious Conversation performs well.

The story is about Susannah, a successful economist or accountant, or something to do with numbers, who is thrown out of work when the company she works for goes into bankruptcy. Unwilling to commit to another soul-sucking position in a large corporation, she opens a chocolate shop. At the same time, her nonexistent social life blossoms to include the city’s most eligible bachelor and an old flame. Oh, and her house is condemned. When it seems that nothing else can happen to complicate her life…well, you’ll just have to read it and see.

Jennifer Stewart Griffith has a light, breezy style. She has written a likeable, self-depreciating heroine, as well as the requisite sterling fella and the handsome-but-secretly-slimy fella necessary in every romance. She gets off some good one-liners and creates a couple off-the-wall situations which she manages to make believable.

Jennifer Griffith names each chapter after a decadent chocolate dessert, and at the end of the chapter you are rewarded with the recipe. I gained three pounds just reading the book.

Delicious Conversation is a cute book. It has an underlying message (not a requisite for chick-lit) about seasons and choices, and would make a nice little, blood-pressure-lowering escape from daily cares. Tuck it in your purse to read while you’re waiting at the dentist’s or at piano lessons, or those odd little pockets of time. You’re guaranteed a happy ending.