Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen

Welcome to Bascom, North Carolina, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. The house that's been in the family for generations, the walled garden that mysteriously blooms year round, the rumours of dangerous loves and tragic passions. Every Waverley woman is somehow touched by magic.

Claire has always clung to the Waverleys' roots, tending the enchanted soil in the family garden from which she makes her sought-after delicacies - famed and feared for their curious effects. She has everything she thinks she needs - until one day she waked to find a stranger has moved in next door and a vine of ivy has crept into her garden . . .

Claire's carefully tended life is about to run gloriously out of control.

My thoughts:

I love her books, what more is there to say? The magical realism in them is just wonderful. I believe it, I want to visit and experience that magic.

In this small town we have the Waverley's who have a magical garden and apple tree. But they are not the only ones. There is the family whose men always marry older women, and the family whose women always marry well and who knows how to use sex. But none are like the Waverleys.

Claire loves her garden, she mixes flower with food and suddenly you feel happy, nostalgic etc. But she is also stuck in her ways and afraid to get close because people leave.

Sydney her sister comes back with a daughter. Sydney left because she wanted to be normal, but does she have "magic" of her own? She is running from her own problems but as this is an Allen book everyone will get what they need. 

Magical realism is just awesome. It's done so well that you do not know what to believe. No one is holding a wand, is's just life, maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's everything.

Conclusion:

A lovely story that I read slowly to savor everything.

cover

ok

Paperback, 320 pages
Published April 29th 2008 by Bantam Discovery
Magical realism / fiction
Own