'You'll never look at chocolate the same way again.' Quill & Quire (Canada) Chocolate is synonymous with pleasure, but the real story of chocolate is often far from sweet. Bitter Chocolate begins by tracing the fascinating origins and lore of the cocoa craze while showing that exploitation and inequity have always been closely tied to chocolate production throughout its long history. The modern heart of Bitter Chocolate is Carol Off's inside look at the situation in the Ivory Coast in West Africa, which produces nearly half of the world's cocoa beans. Ground-breaking and eye-opening, Bitter Chocolate is a social history, a passionate, personal investigative account and a brave exposé of the workings of a multi-billion-dollar industry that has institutionalised misery as it has served our pleasures.

A book that challenges our notions of family honour and morality Sometime, somewhere, the conspiracy of silence around Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in Indian homes had to be shattered. This path-breaking book"the first of its kind in the country and subcontinent"attempts to give that sexually abused child a powerful voice. It provides damning disclosures about men, and some women, in middle and upper-class families who sexually abuse their children, then silence them into submission. Based on studies, reports and investigation, this book reveals that a minimum of twenty per cent of girls and boys under the age of sixteen are regularly being sexually abused; half of them in their own homes, by adults who have the child's trust. In Bitter Chocolate, journalist and best-selling author Pinki Virani travels across the country to record the testimonies of the police, doctors, child psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, lawyers and the traumatized victims themselves. The book opens with an account"brave and devoid of self-pity"of the author's own experience. Going beyond blaming, Pinki Virani then proceeds with her insightful analysis of the issue in three notebooks. The first spells out what constitutes CSA, why and how this happens, its devastating after-effects which haunt the victims as they grow into adulthood. The second notebook describes these effects through two real-life stories of women who were betrayed as children by men of their family. The third provides practical solutions on how to counter CSA, including a framework involving the law, the parent and their child. A special chapter addresses adults who have never before disclosed their sexual abuse as children. Plus: a nationally coordinated helpline. Accessible yet comprehensive, Bitter Chocolate is written for the young parent and guardian, principal and teacher, judge and police, lawyer and public prosecutor, teenager and tomorrow's citizen.

This shocking exposé of the corruption and exploitation at the heart of the multibillion-dollar cocoa industry is “an astounding eye-opener that takes no prisoners” (Quill & Quire, starred review). Bitter Chocolate is both an absorbing social history and a passionate investigation into an industry that has institutionalized abuse as it indulges our whims. Award-winning journalist Carol Off traces the fascinating evolution of chocolate from the sixteenth century banquet table of Montezuma’s Aztec court to the bustling factories of Hershey, Cadbury, and Mars. In what will be a shocking revelation to many, Off exposes how slavery and injustice remain a key aspect of its production even today. In the Ivory Coast, the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans, profits from the multibillion-dollar chocolate industry fuel bloody civil war and widespread corruption. Faced with pressure from a crushing “cocoa cartel” demanding more beans for less money, poor farmers have turned to the cheapest labor pool possible: thousands of indentured children who pick the beans but have never themselves known the taste of chocolate. “Bitter Chocolate is less a book about chocolate than it is a study of racism, imperialism and oppression as told through the lens of a single commodity.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Three girls in search of a missing piece of their lives; three girls who will change their worlds to find it . . . 'A sexy, sophisticated page-turner' EVE 'A blockbuster with brains ... the ultimate guilty pleasure' BELLA 'Sheer indulgence' DAILY EXPRESS Laure, seventeen, beautiful and already abandoned twice in her young life. Once by the glamorous mother she can barely remember, a woman who brought shame on the St Lazare family name and fled to America; and then again by a handsome soldier who left her pregnant and alone, facing the wrath of her grandmother. Amelie, caught in a world where she's neither servant nor mistress, trapped between the St Lazare family she's always worked for and the simmering hostility of a country on the verge of meltdown. With a past she knows nothing about and no family of her own, she yearns to find a place that can be home. Melanie, the rock star's daughter who has everything money can buy except the love she craves. A daddy's girl caught in a whirl of damaging relationships, testing those closest to her. In one man she sees the chance to change her life for ever, but at what price? In a story that begins in the relentless heat of a Haitian summer and sweeps through the luxury of America's elite to the colourful chaos of East End London, BITTER CHOCOLATE is a glorious tale of the quest for love, marriage and finding a place to belong.

Pascal's life is like any other boy's as he worries about his English classes and his football skills - until the day rebels come to his village and everything changes. On the run with friends, Pascal finds himself at the mercy of some tough events. But it is not until he ends up working in a cocoa plantation that he realises he must endeavour to find his family and to set himself free of his enslavement. Armed only with his determination, and supported by his friend, Kojo, Pascal has a difficult battle ahead of him.

These days, people are accustomed to seeing chocolate labeled 54%, 61%, or 72% on grocery store shelves, but some bakers are still confused by what the labeling means and how to use it. In Seriously Bitter Sweet, Alice Medrich presents 150 meticulously tested, seriously delicious recipes—both savory and sweet—for a wide range of percentage chocolates. “Chocolate notes” appear alongside, so readers can further adapt any recipe using the percentage chocolate on hand. The book is a complete revision of Alice’s 2003 Bittersweet, which was named the 2004 IACP Cookbook of the Year. Since 2003, the world of chocolate has grown exponentially and terms like “bittersweet” and “semisweet” no longer suffice as chocolatiers everywhere are making chocolates that are labeled with specific percentages of cocoa.Alice clearly outlines the qualities of different chocolates as she explains how to cook with them. With tricks, techniques, and answers to every chocolate question, Seriously Bitter Sweet will appeal to a whole new audience of chocolate lovers

For fans of Linda Sue Park and A Long Way Gone, two young boys must escape a life of slavery in modern-day Ivory Coast Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou, can chop down in a day. The higher the number the safer they are. The higher the number the closer they are to paying off their debt and returning home. Maybe. The problem is Amadou doesn’t know how much he and Seydou owe, and the bosses won’t tell him. The boys only wanted to make money to help their impoverished family, instead they were tricked into forced labor on a plantation in the Ivory Coast. With no hope of escape, all they can do is try their best to stay alive—until Khadija comes into their lives. She’s the first girl who’s ever come to camp, and she’s a wild thing. She fights bravely every day, attempting escape again and again, reminding Amadou what it means to be free. But finally, the bosses break her, and what happens next to the brother he has always tried to protect almost breaks Amadou. The three band together as family and try just once more to escape. Inspired by true-to-life events happening right now, The Bitter Side of Sweet is an exquisitely written tour de force not to be missed. “A gripping and painful portrait of modern-day child slavery in the cacao plantations of the Ivory Coast.”—The Wall Street Journal “A tender, harrowing story of family, friendship, and the pursuit of freedom.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review