Philippa Gregory: Bread and Chocolate

By MARHIE THOMSON

First published in 2000, this collection of cravings-driven stories is out in paperback this week - just in time for Gregory's visit here for World Book Day Aotearoa.

Together, they cover the gamut of the appetites, simple little stories about food, love, sex, infidelity, revenge, all told sweetly, but with a bite to finish.

Meet Brother James, who bakes divine bread for a television show but is about to be sorely tempted by the maker of a sinful devil's food cake; Stephanie, who develops some unusual theories about how to manage a straying husband and finally gets the chance to put her theories to the test; Sarah, who finds being a mistress is not all she thought it would be, and James, who thinks he can have it all; and Clare, who learns to see her husband for what he is, thanks to the help of her best friend and a mysterious old camera.

Mistresses beware: wives come out on top in these stories. Hell hath no fury, after all. And revenge, as Gregory shows us here, is one dish best eaten cool.

Bread and Chocolate is a meze platter of a book: snack and graze at your leisure. Light and spiky.

* HarperCollins, $21.95

* You can meet Philippa Gregory on October 10: afternoon tea at the Carlton Hotel, $35, bookings essential, phone 366 5633; Auckland Girls Grammar, 6pm, where she will perform her theatre piece Sugar and Spite, bookings through the Women's Bookshop.