Garden Spells

I had seen a number of people blog about Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen and I was pretty curious about it. First of all, it has a great cover. And both the description and the title indicated there was something vaguely magical about it.

Claire is a Waverly. And in Bascom that means that people stay away because everyone knows that Waverly’s aren’t quite normal. But for Claire Bascom has a stability for her that she craved for the early years of her life. It meant family and and a home even if it was just her that lived there and she was too scared to let anyone in. But then her sister Sydney comes back to town after having fled from it, and from the Waverly name, right after high school. But she didn’t come back alone - she came back with her daughter Bay.

Each Waverly has a special talent - some call it magic. For Claire it comes with food. Bay just knows where things belong. Claire’s aunt Evanelle must give people things even though she doesn’t know what they are for. And Sydney? Sydney is still looking for hers. And then there is the Waverly garden with it’s special flowers - and its mischievous apple tree.

I started this book before bed and then didn’t put it down until I had finished it. By times it reminded me of that Sandra Bullock movie, Practical Magic (minus killing the boyfriend and without a law enforcement officer as a love interest). But it has the same “the family is considered outsiders” kind of thing. It was at times serious, other times touching, and yet other times amusing.

It was, simply, a fun little book. And I’m looking forward to getting my hands on Allen’s newest novel, The Sugar Queen, which is not a sequel (I originally thought it was…).