Alex Carret is a talented young Brussels chocolatier whose life takes a drastic turn when he quits his job and agrees to partner with a friend of a friend named Ben. He’s a little wary of him at first, but when Ben comes up with a business plan, a space, a brilliant branding idea, and a 100,000-euro loan, Alex can’t resist the temptation of seeing his lifelong dream come true. Soon he and his team are selecting the finest chocolate from countries around the world and throwing a launch party, which is a smash success. But will that put them in the crosshairs of other local power brokers?

I thought the premise of this graphic novel – following a chocolatier in Brussels would be a fun read, and it was. A lot of the plot was predictable for me, but it was still enjoyable. I liked some of the diversity of characters, such as Manon who is deaf and like the overall individual characters that were created. The art style is very classic and realistic, so it was easy to follow and had great detail.

You can pretty easily see a few ways the following volumes could progress as people’s roles and possible plot points were defined, but there were still enough things that were left up in the air. All in all I would say it’s a good first installment to a contemporary graphic novel series with great information about chocolate and chocolate making.

Happy reading!