The glorious novel from the bestselling Lesley Lokko; an epic tale of three women whose lives interweave over decades. In a beachfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca relax, safe in the knowledge that their young children are in the care of life-long friend Tash. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished... Annick, daughter of an actress and an assassinated president, has spent her life running from the truth of her family's wealth. Rebecca has always done the right thing. Perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Perfect mother. She's beginning to wonder if she'll ever get chance to live for herself. And Tash, free from the poverty of her heritage, has the world at her feet. So why is she struggling to keep a grip on her life? This is the sweeping story of three very different women; their pasts, their secrets, and their friendship.

'A very 21st Century blockbuster, this has all the classic elements - nailbiting narrative, absorbing relationships, glamorous locations - with an extra shot of intelligence' COSMOPOLITAN 'Best described as a sort of Blockbuster Plus - in this case plus a little bit more intelligence and social and political grip than is normal . . . Agreeably glamorous and pageturning' DAILY MAIL Take four friends... Rianne: beautiful, wealthy and thoroughly spoilt, she has the world at her feet but is about to risk everything. Gabrielle: intelligent, loyal and always worrying about everyone else, now it's time for her to start looking after No.1. Nathalie: petite, pretty and with a shrewd eye for business, she uses her work to help her forget the one man she can't have. Charmaine: flirty and outrageous, she knows all about the good life. She just needs someone to pay for it... Then a chance encounter changes everything - and for Rianne and her friends, nothing is going to be the same again...

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.