On a warm July evening, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother's ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille.For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay - when her child is born in a few months, she must be gone.As she discovers the joy of cooking, making recipes her own with the addition of bittersweet chocolate spices, she realises that it possesses its own magic in this town full of secrets....

Bernie Moon has given her life to other people: her husband, her son, her friends (who are these days, mostly online). At nineteen she was full of dreams and ambitions; now almost fifty, and going through the menopause, she''s fading, fast. Heartbroken and hormonal, she often feels like she''s losing her mind.But when a young woman is murdered in a local park, it sparks a series of childhood memories in Bernie and with them, a talent that has lain dormant most of her adult life.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely forty, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts. And with it, the remains of a body are discovered.But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She''ll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before. After all......