This is the first in a series about the town of Icicle Falls. The story focuses on the family running the chocolate makers, Sweet Dreams. BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE carries so many references to comfort eating of chocolate, and so few mentions of fresh fruit, that the townsfolk must be at risk of diabetes and obesity. They seem a homogenous bunch, no immigrant workers except a Latina secretary. The story hinges around saving the firm from bankruptcy.

Samantha Sterling has been involved with the family firm all her life but her mother Muriel's second marriage introduces a new boss. Some senior moments cause him to make unwise purchases and he dies suddenly leaving the firm's finances in a mess. Muriel is grieving and never managed her own finances let alone the firm's so Samantha has to cope. Her sister Cecily comes back from LA and takes over PR. The bank is calling in a loan and Muriel is living in a large house which is also mortgaged; her late husband had let his life insurance lapse. Poor Muriel only starts recovering when she joins a widows' conversation group.

The new bank manager is Blake Preston, once a high-school heart-throb who has worked elsewhere and now returns to the Alpine-style town in Washington state. He unfortunately is allergic to chocolate, but he can see how many jobs depend on the firm and wishes he wasn't under orders to keep payments on schedule. He is also impressed by Samantha's determination and skills, but he can't get a chance to show it, she is so busy organizing a Chocolate Festival and Mr. Dreamy contest. The whole town will benefit from a festival with rooms, meals, food and drink sales, so the Chamber of Commerce gets behind the idea. Troubles pile up though including a mountain rockslide blocking the main road and a cheap candy maker trying to organize a buyout.

I felt that Sheila Roberts put too much emphasis on the details of organizing the festival and rebuilding the finances. A firm with such a payroll and turnover would surely have employed an accountant, and there are so many small businesses in town that somebody would have opened a bookkeeping business. However the lesson that a woman should understand domestic cashflow is well worth emphasizing; to do otherwise is storing up trouble. While I enjoyed the read, the business side of the matter occupies so much of the story that the romance came off a poor second. I was unfamiliar with the peculiar phrase "she is upside down on her house" but from the context I was able to infer that it meant the property was in negative equity. Other odd phrases included "to share a common snark bone" which was not explained. There were some delicious-sounding recipes for chocolate sweets at the end, such as rosewater white chocolate truffles.

Book Summary

Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company has been in the Sterling family for generations, ever since Great-Grandma Rose literally dreamed up her first fabulous recipe. But now it looks like they're about to lose Sweet Dreams to the bank- and that would be a disaster, not only for the family but for the town of Icicle Falls, Washington. Can Samantha, the oldest daughter and new head of the company, come up with a way to save it?

After some brainstorming with her mother and sisters, inspiration strikes. They'll have a chocolate festival! Time's running out, but the Sterling women are determined and the town's behind them, so everything's bound to go smoothly....

Or not. Events seem to be conspiring against Samantha, and her mother's attempts to help aren't helping. To make matters worse, the fate of her company is in the hands of her archenemy, Blake Preston, the bank manager with the football-hero good looks. It's enough to drive her to chocolate. But Blake's also enough to convince her that (believe it or not) there's something even better than chocolate.

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