Washoe County Library System

Since she was a little girl, the wind has dictated every move Vianne Rocher has made, buffeting her from the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie on a small Montmartre street, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Anouk and baby Rosette, safe.

Her new home above the chocolate shop offers calm

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A young widow opens a chocolate shop in a French village, transforming its normally austere inhabitants into unabashed sensualists. The event coincides with Lent, and the villagers' rejection of traditional self-denial angers the parish priest who declares war.

Now I'm in charge, the gates are my gates. The rules are my rules. It's an incendiary moment for St Oswald's school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to girls. 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....

Vianne Rochet returns to the French village of Lansquenet with her daughters, Anouk and Rosette, before allying herself with a desperate Father Frances Reynaud to reverse disturbing local changes.