The Peach Keeper

The Peach Keeper
by Sarah Addison Allen
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780553807226
Publication Date: March 22, 2011
Pages: 273
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: Bantam Books

Welcome to Walls of Water, North Carolina, a place where secrets run thicker than the town's famous fog.

Once upon a time, Willa Jackson's family owned the beautiful house on the top of the ridge. Now it symbolises her family's ruin and a legacy Willa longs to escape from.

Paxton Osgood also yearns to break free, especially from her parents' expectations, and the heartbreak of unrequited love. Desperate for a distraction, she decides to restore the empty mansion to its former glory.

But the discovery of a long-buried secret, a friendship that defies time, and a touch of magic, will transform both women's lives in ways they would never have expected.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Sarah Addison Allen books I’ve read, but I stayed away from this one for a long time because, frankly, I don’t like peaches*.

As reasons go to not read a book, it’s a pretty stupid one, so when I saw the title at a library sale for $1 I did the mature thing and bought it.

I LOVED this book! It was SO good. It had shades of Practical Magic in it, and a cameo by Claire Waverly from Garden Spells and a small but very important murder mystery. The only thing it needed to make it perfect was Claire’s apple tree.

The Peach Keeper felt like Allen crossed from Magical Realism into straight magic; there aren’t a lot of logical reasons (or any) for why the strange events in Walls of Water were happening. The character development felt a lot richer too; limiting the plot to only 4 people, and really focusing on the 2 female protagonists made it feel like a much tighter story. The romantic tension was intense (although the sex scenes were almost non-existent).

Is this Pride and Prejudice good? No, of course not (nothing is that good), but it is Practical Magic (the movie, not the book) good. If you liked that movie, or you enjoy good stories about the power of friendship, I think you’ll enjoy this.

* It’s a tactile thing; peach fuzz = fingernails on a chalkboard.

Lost Lake

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250019820
Publication Date: January 6, 2015
Pages: 296
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

The first time Eby Pim saw Lost Lake, it was on a picture postcard. Just an old photo and a few words on a small square of heavy stock, but when she saw it, she knew she was seeing her future.

That was half a life ago. Now Lost Lake is about to slip into Eby's past. Her husband George is long passed. Most of her demanding extended family are gone. All that's left is a once-charming collection of lakeside cabins succumbing to the Southern Georgia heat and damp, and an assortment of faithful misfits drawn back to Lost Lake year after year by their own unspoken dreams and desires.

It's a lot, but not enough to keep Eby from relinquishing Lost Lake to a developer with cash in hand, and calling this her final summer at the lake. Until one last chance at family knocks on her door.

Lost Lake is where Kate Pheris spent her last best summer at the age of twelve, before she learned of loneliness, and heartbreak, and loss. Now she's all too familiar with those things, but she knows about hope too, thanks to her resilient daughter Devin, and her own willingness to start moving forward. Perhaps at Lost Lake her little girl can cling to her own childhood for just a little longer... and maybe Kate herself can rediscover something that slipped through her fingers so long ago.

One after another, people find their way to Lost Lake, looking for something that they weren't sure they needed in the first place: love, closure, a second chance, peace, a mystery solved, a heart mended. Can they find what they need before it's too late?

At once atmospheric and enchanting, Lost Lake shows Sarah Addison Allen at her finest, illuminating the secret longings and the everyday magic that wait to be discovered in the unlikeliest of places.

I’d heard through the book vine that Lost Lake was one of Allen’s weaker offerings, but its synopsis pulled me in more than The Peach Keeper‘s and it was the only one my library had.

Reading it, I can understand the meh reactions; emotionally, the book doesn’t have much of a build-up of tension. But I read First Frost and compared to that one, this was (sorry Ms. Allen) stellar. I really liked Eby and Kate… I pretty much liked all the characters. Even Selma, and I think that went a long way towards offsetting the lack of dramatic arc. Lisette did get on my nerves a tiny bit, but wasn’t so bad that she overshadowed the rest. I loved Billy. Like the apple tree in Garden Spells, Billy was my favourite of this book.

The climax of the story line between Kate and her mother-in-law Cricket ended weirdly: very much with a whimper instead of the bang I was expecting, although Cricket’s disappearance for the second half of the book didn’t feel odd except in hindsight. I thought it was refreshing to have two main characters that were not emotionally damaged or needed fixing; bad things happened to them but they pulled themselves up instead of running to someone else.

Overall, I just enjoyed the book. I didn’t love it like The Girl Who Chased the Moon or Garden Spells but I did like it enough to lose myself in the story.

This is my book for the Magical Realism square in 2016 Halloween Bingo.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Girl Who Chased the Moon
by Sarah Addison Allen
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781444706628
Publication Date: January 1, 2010
Pages: 273
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother's life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realises that mysteries aren't solved in Mullaby, they're a way of life. Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbour, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, offering them to satisfy the town's sweet tooth - but also in the hope of rekindling a love she fears might be lost forever. Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily's backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

I bought this one on the strength of how much I enjoyed Garden Spells and I think I ended up liking this one even more.

The story centers primarily on two women: Emily, a teen-ager (who doesn’t act like one) who moves to Mullaby North Carolina to live with her grandfather after the death of her mother. She’s determined to learn about her mother’s history and finds a lot more than she bargained for. Julia Winterson has a plan; one that involves not being in Mullaby, but she has 6 more months of saving, scrimping, and avoiding Sawyer and her teen-age past before she can enact her plan.

I love the towns Sarah Addison Allen creates in her books; they’re small, magical, quirky and nobody thinks they’re odd. Living in Mullaby sounds like fun. In Garden Spells, I had a hard time liking or sympathising with the characters, but there wasn’t a character in this book I didn’t immediately like (at least none of the living ones).

The plot might not have been the most climatic one I’ve read, but I just lost myself in it and stayed up last night long after the point of reading comprehension because I just didn’t want it to end. It was a magical surprise.