The Discovery of Chocolate: A Novel - Rilegato

James Runcie is a writer and film-maker. His films include Miss Pym's Day Out, Saturday/Sunday, My Father, and The Great Fire. The Discovery of Chocolate is his first novel.

When Diego de Godoy leaves his native Seville and takes a ship for the New World, he is hoping to find a treasure that will make him worthy of the hand in marriage of the beautiful Isabella de Quintallina.

He finds more than he bargained for.

Fighting alongside Cortes and his conquistadors Diego falls in love with a Mexican woman and she initiates him into the sensuous secret of chocolate.

From the moment he is separated from his lover, however, Diego and his ever-faithful greyhound Pedro are destined to wander throughout the world and down the centuries in search of the fulfilment they knew for that brief time, seeking the perfection of chocolate and the meaning of life.

Full of excitement, humour and not a little sadness, the drama of Diego's quest is played out against a background of great cities, by a cast of richly colourful characters, including the Marquis de Sade and Sigmund Freud, to name but two.

'The Discovery of Chocolate' is a fabulous delight, as rich and exotic as the luxurious confections that Diego himself creates.