Guest Post (and a Giveaway!): Laura Frantz & A Heart Adrift

Please join me in welcoming the always-delightful Laura Frantz to the blog to talk about chocolate (yes please!) and her new historical romance, A Heart Adrift!

A HEART ADRIFT by Laura Frantz
GENRE: Inspirational Historical Romance
PUBLISHER: Revell
RELEASE DATE: January 4, 2022
PAGES: 394

It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she’s never quite recovered. But she longs to find something worthwhile to do with her life.

Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing the lighthouse in the dangerous Chesapeake Bay, a dream he once shared with Esmée. But when the colonial government asks him to lead a secret naval expedition against the French, his future is plunged into uncertainty.

Will a war and a cache of regrets keep them apart, or can their shared vision and dedication to the colonial cause heal the wounds of the past? Bestselling and award-winning author Laura Frantz whisks you away to a time fraught with peril–on the sea and in the heart–in this redemptive, romantic story.

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A Heart Adrift … in chocolate!

by Laura Frantz, author of A Heart Adrift

Who knew a lifelong love of chocolate would lead to a novel about a colonial chocolatier? Though I was raised by a mom who dislikes chocolate, she didn’t deny me the pleasure. One of my first photos is sitting on a red sofa devouring a chocolate Easter bunny. As I’ve aged, my chocolate tastes have changed. Hershey was once my childish mainstay till I went abroad and tasted the rich, velvety Cadbury, Lindt, and Toblerone made from European butter and cream. No more Hershey for me!

Likewise, colonial American chocolate was vastly different than chocolate today. Back then cocoa had to be imported, processed & refined by hand before use in myriad creative ways. And it was bitter. Very. A great deal of sugar was required to make it palatable. Still, our ancestors were wild about it. George and Martha Washington enjoyed cups of hot chocolate. Benjamin Franklin was selling chocolate from his print shop in Philadelphia. And in similar fashion, our heroine in A Heart Adrift is busy plying her delicious wares on the York, Virginia waterfront in the year 1755.

What chocolate confections would Esmée Shaw have made?

Nothing remotely similar to what you’d find in a chocolate shop today. Other than a chocolate tart that is. No matter what the century, pastry and filling are a timeless combination and this chocolate tart is proof (see recipe cards).

While researching and writing A Heart Adrift, I leaned from chocolate historians – and my respect for cocoa’s heritage expanded along with my waistline!

Fun chocolate facts:

• Chocolate varieties are milk, dark, white, blond
• It takes up to a week to make a single-serving chocolate bar
• Chocolate was once used as currency
• American Revolutionary soldiers were given chocolate as rations
• The Swiss consume the most chocolate, over 22 lbs. per person for year
• Brussels, Belgium sells the most chocolate
• Chocolate consumption is linked to heart health, even teeth health
• Research shows that when bookstores carry the scent of chocolate, sales of books spike, especially romance novels!

I hope you’ll visit my social media pages during release for more chocolate facts, fun, giveaways, & more!

For more chocolate history, please visit: https://www.americanheritagechocolate.com/

Laura Frantz is a Christy Award winner and the ECPA bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including An Uncommon Woman, Tidewater Bride, The Frontiersman’s Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, The Colonel’s Lady, The Lacemaker, and A Bound Heart. She is a proud mom of an American soldier and a career firefighter. When not at home in Kentucky, she and her husband live in Washington State. Learn more at www.laurafrantz.net.

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Revell is offering a print copy of A Heart Adrift by Laura Frantz to TWO of my readers! (US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.) This giveaway is subject to Reading Is My SuperPower’s giveaway policies which can be found here. Enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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What about you? What makes you want to read A Heart Adrift by Laura Frantz? What’s your favorite source of chocolate?