I often find the regular black and white to be too stark. Does anyone have an editing software to recommend that would enable almost a chocolate black and white? Any suggestions welcome....

With Photoshop or Photoshop Elements you can easily do that - to whatever degree you want.

There are many online photo editors if you don't want to invest in any Photoshop type software right now.

Here is original:

..and using the Sepia tone at Luna Pic

First, convert the copy of your photo to grayscale:

Open the copy of the image, then select IMAGE, then MODE, then GRAYSCALE

Doing that will then activate the DUOTONE option.

Re-select IMAGE, then MODE again, but this time choose DUOTONE.

When the window opens up, it'll have two basic selections:

PRESET which will have "Custom" in the window, and
TYPE which will have "monotone" in the window.

You can select "Monotone", "Duotone", "Tritone", or "Quadtone" as your type. That controls how many levels of additional color (1, 2, 3, or 4) you want to add to your grayscale photo.

Under "preset" you can select from numerous types of preloaded toning combinations. The name implies the type of tone it will impart to your grayscale photo.

For a "chocolate" look, you might want to take a look at "brown 464 bl 1" or something in that group. You can also tweak the tones to your liking.

Best, Mongo