As Maya stepped into The Cocoa Café her heart sank a little. Every morning was the same. She woke while it was still dark, dressed and drank coffee, before walking slowly down the stairs connecting her flat to the café. Then she spent the next few hours baking, until the first customer rang the bell.

The café had been her mother's dream, and as a little girl Maya had loved it. She'd helped to bake, sweep and serve. She sat behind the counter while her mother, Lily, was busy, staring at the door and leaping up whenever it opened.

Maya had loved cutting thick slices of chocolate- cherry tarts, raspberry pavlovas and lemon drizzle cakes. She had offered customers fresh lavender- sugar doughnuts and iced citrus biscuits. She'd smiled to see people's eyes light up as she slid their treats across the old oak counter.

When Maya turned eighteen she finally felt ready to leave the warmth of the café and go out into the world. She'd won a place at Oxford to read English Literature and couldn't wait to go. It was all she could talk about. Customers congratulated her, and Maya gave them free chocolate cupcakes in return. Lily was so proud of her daughter she named the 'treat of the week' Trinity Tiramisu in Maya's honour and kept it on the special's board all summer.

Oxford was everything Maya had dreamt it would be. She walked among words, spent her days sitting in stories, and her nights creating new tales for the characters in her dreams.

She read every piece of literature she could find, working her way alphabetically along the library shelves, hiding herself away in the maze of corridors that contained at least one copy of every book ever printed. One night, when Maya was studying late in the library, she stumbled upon a very special book.

Hours later, when she finally put it down, Maya gazed out of the window and smiled at the stars. She knew then that she had finally found her place in the world. She knew then that she was a writer. In the silence Maya had heard her soul speak, and she'd felt truly alive for the first time: as bright as lightning and as light as air.

After that she wrote all the time. She filled notebooks so quickly that soon hundreds were scattered across her bedroom floor. Any piece of paper became a page. Maya scribbled novels on napkins, receipts and ticket stubs, sometimes surprising herself with sentences so beautiful and true they took her breath away.

However, six months after Maya left home Lily fell ill. At first they didn't know what it was. At first there was still hope. But two months after that, when the diagnosis had been confirmed, Maya dropped out of Oxford to come home and take care of her. Lily had lived until Christmas Eve, and the night she died asked Maya to take care of the café.

That was ten years ago, and Maya tried not to think about it now: the day she lost her mother and the moment she lost herself. But the pain still lingered in her heart, nestled in a dark, wet corner that throbbed whenever she remembered.

Maya sighed as she crossed the floor, passing empty shelves that would soon be sinking under the weight of cakes and chocolate flapjacks, and dropped step by step down the stairs to the café kitchen. There she stayed, bent over bowls, lining cake tins, opening ovens, snacking on honey and chocolate chips, until the sun came up.

After opening, Maya made herself a cappuccino and sat behind the café counter to stare out at the rain. She watched people rushing past, hiding under their umbrellas and pushing through the wind. Every day Maya lost an ongoing battle to resist breakfasting on coffee and chocolate croissants. Sometimes she managed to hold back for a few hours, but rarely made it to ten o'clock without devouring a couple of croissants in a guilt-laden frenzy. The rest of the day was an inevitable downslide into oblivion. All the time the chocolate treats tempted her, and Maya wondered desperately why she couldn't win a battle of wills with a slice of fudge cake, just once. She glanced at a plate of chocolate cupcakes on the counter and absolutely vowed that today she wouldn't eat anything sweet. She looked down at the unopened self-help book in her hands, the title promising to cure Maya of her addiction to unavailable men, and caught the sad sight of her cake-rounded belly under her apron. Maya turned a page, trying to focus, but her heart wasn't in it.

Some days Maya feared she'd finally have to let go of her dreams. For years she'd been trying to finish a novel, scribbling sentences between baking cakes, serving customers and worrying about her accounts. She'd tried, hoped and wished to find love but had spent the last decade either serially single or recovering from failed love affairs. And every day she tried to impose a strict diet on herself, calling on ever-diminishing reserves of willpower, and every day she succumbed to temptation.

Maya's world was shaped by her thoughts about men, money and chocolate; and these thoughts were almost always self-critical and depressing. In the pursuit of love, success and weight loss she'd failed to find anything like joy, but she continued to try. It rarely occurred to Maya that perhaps she might be mistaken, that in her obsessive focus on these particular goals she may be missing something.

Sometimes Maya sensed some special secret to happiness that lay just beyond her reach. For, in rare moments, she would be surprised by a sensation of childhood joy that crept up when her head hovered over a cake bowl and she bent down to sniff the sugar, or caught the sight of sunlight through golden leaves. Without knowing why or how, the memory of something she'd once known would touch her and suddenly she would smile, seeing a whole bright and brilliant world opening up before her. And for one eternal moment Maya would be flooded with a feeling of warmth and peace. But in the next second it was gone.

So, while Maya believed, deep in her heart, that she could be truly happy, she had absolutely no idea how.

Maya sipped her cappuccino and glanced around the café. In her mother's day it had been full of people, noisy with happy chatter. But nowadays it was often empty.

Maya worried that she wasn't paying off her debts fast enough. In the first few years after Lily died Maya had made some heavy mistakes. Ten years on they weighed on her still, not helped by the number of chain coffee shops that multiplied through the town like a genetic cloning project set on world domination. Every week at least three new ones seemed to spring up in a single street.

But, for now at least, Maya was holding on, slowly pulling herself from the brink of financial collapse. Her regulars were loyal. They'd been loyal to her mother and they were loyal to her. At least they would be as long as she kept making Lily's famous flapjacks and adding chocolate-covered cocoa beans to their cappuccinos.

Maya stared at a lone couple sitting in the corner, snuggling into soft, red velvet cushions. The man whispered into the girl's ear and she giggled. Maya looked away and reached for a cupcake. The sight of two people in love, when she had no one, was too much to bear without the comfort of chocolate.

Maya's thoughts turned, as they usually did in moments like these, to Jake.

Jake was a customer Maya fantasised about on a regular basis. She spent hours imagining the same glorious scenario, the two of them together in an exquisitely expensive flat in Paris, bathing in champagne and feeding each other strawberries. To this daydream she added an ability to indulge in vast quantities of chocolate cake, while being completely unable to put on a single pound. Sometimes Maya varied things a little, usually the locations.

Jake was tall, blond and heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Indeed, Maya often thought he was a little too gorgeous for his own good. Or at least for her good, since he rarely gave her a second glance. Of course he flirted, but she knew this was how he was with everyone, how he charmed his way through life.

Jake had that air about him that invited her to admire, adore and desire him, while making it perfectly clear that the rest of him was off limits. So, even if she were allowed close enough to touch, there would be a part of his heart she could never reach.

But Maya was absolutely, completely and utterly in love with him. And even though she believed, totally and unequivocally, that this was a man who would never fall in love with her, she still held onto a small thread of hope that it was possible. Just as people buy lottery tickets every week, Maya knew that, although her odds of success were very small indeed, it wasn't altogether impossible that one day Jake might be hers. And until then she contented herself with fantasising about their possible life together.

Sometimes Maya overheard Jake chatting on his mobile, waiting for his takeaway cappuccino, and she eavesdropped on the ups and downs of his love life. Maya listened to Jake juggle girlfriends, catching them in each hand, hiding one behind his back. And with every fresh revelation Maya's fears about Jake were etched more deeply. Yet she told herself that one day, when he fell in love with the right woman, he might stop all that. And Maya thought maybe, with a little luck and a lot of wishing, she could be that woman.

The bell above the door rang. Maya glanced up as Jake walked in. He shook the water off his umbrella and instantly flicked on a dazzling smile. Maya sat up straight and sucked in her stomach. Jake walked over to the counter, still flashing his thousand- kilowatt grin.

'I'll have...' he began.

'Medium cappuccino, extra chocolate beans,' Maya finished.

'That's right. Thanks.'

Maya turned away to the coffee machine, wishing she'd washed her hair that morning.

'It's quieter than usual today,' Jake said.

'I know,' Maya squeaked, again worrying about the ever-diminishing amount of customers and her rather precarious financial situation.

Jake said nothing and the echo of Maya's voice sounded shrill in the silence. She wracked her brains for something devastatingly witty to say, but her mind went blank. Finally Maya turned back to him, handing over the coffee. Jake slipped off the lid and sipped it. 'Perfect.'

'You must have asbestos lips.' Maya smiled, gazing at them.

He handed her a fiver. 'Sorry?'

'No, I mean,' Maya said, 'I only meant, I... I can't drink it so hot.'

'Oh?'

'Yes, but I didn't mean to...'

Maya searched for the words, losing herself in Jake's perfect features. Just then his phone rang and he turned to answer it, walking away as he spoke. Maya watched him leave, leaning a little to catch the view. She waited until the door closed behind him, then groaned and banged her head softly against the counter.

~

Maya hadn't always felt so frustrated. Although she could barely remember it, twenty years ago she'd been supremely happy. Free from doubt and fear, she'd known exactly what she wanted from life and just how to get it. Desire and direction were joined in her, and her future was certain to be wonderful.

As a child Maya often imagined the glorious life she'd have as a grown-up, with a beautiful man who adored her, a child of her own and work she enjoyed as much as play.

Maya had liked to chat about these things with God. She hadn't been raised religiously, so it wasn't a specific god she talked to. It was more of a feeling she connected with, a feeling that someone or something was out there. Listening.

Often Maya directed her dreams at the sky, the clouds, or a bird, or a tree. In everything she saw she felt the vibration of magic, of cosmic energies, of God. So she talked and talked. And, even though she didn't hear answers in her head, she knew they came because she felt them in her heart.

It thrilled Maya to chat like this, feeling as though she was harbouring a special, secret connection with creation. She skipped along the pavement, leaping up to touch the branches of trees, catching sunlight in her hands and grinning as her heart tingled with joy. Maya didn't mind when people gave her funny looks. She just smiled, wanting to share her secret with them but not quite knowing how.

Maya engaged with the world as though it was a living, breathing being she loved, imagining she was completely connected with everything, part of it body and soul. She looked for patterns in the rhythms of life, searching for hints and clues while pondering the questions life gave her. She played with everything she saw, twirling with leaves as they danced in the wind, imagining them blown by the breath of a universe that delighted in everything it created.

Sometimes Maya was silent, spending long, languid moments just staring at things. She loved being outside, sitting on the grass and gazing up at swallows dipping in the sky. But her favourite experience above all was watching frogs. Maya liked to lie on her stomach, waiting for a quiet rustling in the grass. And when a tiny green frog jumped past her nose, her heart leapt with it. She'd creep up close after they landed and watch their tiny hearts pumping while they waited for the next urge to leap.

Lily had often watched Maya chatting away to the sky and it had worried her. But she'd told herself Maya would grow out of it. And so she did. One day Maya just stopped talking with God.

She was nine years old. The first day at her new school. She had been so excited to meet new friends, to take them on her walks, to share her secrets with them all. But that first afternoon, as Maya skipped past the trees and talked to the birds, she learnt the horror of being the odd one out, of being mocked in the playground. Their taunting voices filled the air and tears fell down her face. The humiliation slid down her spine, crept into her chest and muffled her heart. The sour taste stayed in her mouth for days and the voices haunted her dreams for years.

That was the last time she looked up at the sky, smiled at nothing and talked to something she only sensed but couldn't see. Later in life Maya still remembered that moment and understood why most adults walked through life so carefully contained, too scared to smile at strangers. She understood that the fear of embarrassment is a great dampener of joy.

Now Maya no longer shared her heart with God, or with anyone else. She kept her desires and dreams to herself. Secrets locked away, only to be studied in moments of great solitude.

But the fact that she no longer admitted them to anyone didn't stop her dreaming all day long. Her desires lingered in her mind while she leant on the counter at the café. And, as long as no one interrupted her, Maya could daydream for hours.

Maya sat behind the till digesting a sandwich and another cupcake, the disappointment with Jake having sent her back again to the comfort of chocolate. She flicked through a magazine, enviously eyeing up the skinny celebrities and trying to forget that it was barely midday and she'd already broken her no-chocolate promise, twice.

Maya tried hard not to think about Jake; instead she decided to focus on cleaning the coffee machine. It didn't look like she'd get many customers that morning, so she took the opportunity to take it apart.

UK NATIONAL REVIEWS

"This gentle, touching and wryly wise little book is a chocolate in itself – sweet and delicious!"
Katie Fforde

"A heart-warming novel about learning to love yourself and follow your dreams."
Style Magazine

"A wonderful, magical book!"
Fiona Walker

"A bright, cheerful book full of hidden messages, recommended to anyone who believes in true happiness."
Kindred Spirit Magazine

"A touching tale of transformation that virtually every woman can relate to."
Beyond Chocolate

A SELECTION OF READER'S STORIES & EMAILS...

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