Overview

""In Rachel Miranda's brilliant and beautiful debut novel, family love is the strongest power in the universe. Broken Chocolate is both a suspenseful medical drama and a marvel of empathy and insight."" Brian Morton, author of Tasha: A Son's Memoir, winner of the Pushcart Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship The Sandor family has always been close-birthday breakfasts, Friday-night dinners, and the inventive pastries Liv dreams up as a chef. Sam, a physician in the Yale Brain Injury Department, fills their table with cautionary tales from his patients, reminders of how suddenly life can change. But when sixteen-year-old Zoey-popular, ambitious, and the bright center of the family-falls into a coma after a freak accident, their world fractures. Her twin brother, Zev, must confront life without her protective shadow. Wrestling with social anxiety, he turns to his art to make sense of their abrupt separation, even as he privately navigates a budding romance with Zoey's best friend. Sam faces an agonizing conflict of interest and a crisis of faith, haunted by the childhood losses that led him to medicine. And Liv, shaken from her steady calm, fights to hold her family together with apricot tarts, stubborn hope, and whatever strength she can gather. Inspired by the patients, doctors, and caregivers the author encountered while managing a brain trauma clinic, Broken Chocolate moves us to consider what defines a meaningful life, when to honor old dreams, and when it's time to build new ones.

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9783988322180

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Reviews

""Rachel Miranda's debut novel illuminates how easy it is to lose our bearings after sudden and inexplicable loss. The Sandor family will stick with me-their struggles, and even more so, their powerful ways of leaning against each other, taking turns holding each other up. This story enlarges our understanding of grief and recovery, moving adeptly through big themes and small moments. Broken Chocolate is as poignant as it is uplifting."" Denton Loving, author of Feller and Tamp, winner of the Tennessee Book Prize for Poetry ""Fifteen-year-old Zoey lies in a coma, and the Sandor family wants just one thing: for everything to go back to the way it was. Rachel Miranda guides us through their harrowing journey with compassion, precision, and suspense. Broken Chocolate tells a fundamental truth about life's liminal spaces: they never promise fairy tale endings, but if we're willing to stay present, they often brim with wonders all the same."" June Gervais, author Jobs for Girls with Artistic Flair ""Rachel Miranda's Broken Chocolate is about a traumatic brain injury, but it is, more fundamentally, about faith and family, about the fissures and fractures brought about by tragedy and, along with them, the resilience and love. It's a resonant, compelling debut."" Joshua Henkin, author of Morningside Heights ""In Rachel Miranda's brilliant and beautiful debut novel, family love is the strongest power in the universe. Broken Chocolate is both a suspenseful medical drama and a marvel of empathy and insight."" Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Tasha: A Son's Memoir, winner of the Pushcart Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship ""Rachel Miranda's debut novel, Broken Chocolate, transports us into the rich world of the Sandor family in the wake of a devastating accident. With a keen eye for detail and poignant storytelling, Miranda invites us to root for these characters as they fail, falter, and chart a new path forward. We witness their quiet, everyday struggles and cheer them on as they find their way back to each other. This book reminds us of the magic of embracing our lives and our loved ones as they are, not as we wish they would be."" Emily Mohn-Slate, author of The Falls, winner of the 2019 New American Poetry Prize

Author Information

Rachel Miranda emigrated to America from Switzerland at the age of eight and now lives in the greater New York area. She is the author of The World at Our Table: A Euro-American Cookbook of Family Favorites, and writes a Substack series called Air Hunger. She is a freelance editor specializing in translated literature and scholarly works, and managing editor of Plamen Press. She earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing and Literature from Bennington Writing Seminars, and she continues to savor every chance to play with the English language. Broken Chocolate is her debut novel. Visit: rachelmiranda.com.

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