Book Review: Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Bantam Books
290 Pages
2007
CHALLENGE – Yes: Southern Reading Challenge

The Waverley family of Bascom, North Carolina has always been a bit odd. Take Evanelle for example. She gets ‘urges’ to give people things, strange, out of place things that the receiver ends up needing shortly after getting it from Evanelle. And there’s Claire, who lives in the Waverley homestead that comes with a magnificent garden that contains plants she uses in her catering business, plants that bring things about that might not happen without them:

The biscuits with lilac jelly, the lavender tea cookies, and the tea cakes made with nasturtium mayonnaise the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over marigold-petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose-hip soup ensured that your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws. Anise hyssop honey butter on toast, angelica candy, and cupcakes with crystallized pansies made children thoughtful. Honeysuckle wine served on the Fourth of July gave you the ability to see in the dark. The nutty flavor of the dip made from hyacinth bulbs made you feel moody and think of the past, and the salads made with chicory and mint had you believing that something good was about to happen, whether it was true or not.

And then there’s the apple tree that seems to throw its apples in an attempt to get someone to pay attention to it. There’s only one problem with its apples – eating one will give you a vision of the biggest thing that is going to happen in your life – good, bad, or indifferent.

Claire is content living her quiet life in Bascom after a childhood spent on the road with her mother. She loves her home and the routine she’s found and, most of all, she likes belonging somewhere and to someone. It’s security she didn’t have as a child.

Claire’s quiet life, however, begins to go off the tracks when she meets her next door neighbor, Tyler Hughes, a good-looking art teacher. Things continue going astray when Sydney, Claire’s younger sister suddenly comes home with her daughter Bay in tow. Both women find themselves dealing with old jealousies and feelings… along with some new ones. And there’s Bay’s father, the abusive man Sydney ran all the way back to Bascom to escape.

I’ve got some quotes to share that aren’t really connected to anything I want to say, except that I love the way Allen uses words:

What was Claire supposed to do? Sydney was family. Claire had learned the hard way that you weren’t supposed to take them for granted. She’d also learned they could hurt you more than anyone else in the world.

Ariel looked queenly and elegant and ten years younger than her real age. Like Emma, her hair was blond and her boobs were big. She drove a convertible, wore diamonds with denim, and she never missed a homecoming game. She was so Southern that she cried tears that came straight from the Mississippi, and she always smelled faintly of cottonwood and peaches.

Some things couldn’t be explained. Some things could. Sometimes you liked the explanation. Sometimes you didn’t. That’s when you called it a myth.

Recommendation: Garden Spells is simply a lovely book. It is a tale of sisters, love, and accepting who you are. It is a story that is as soft as a summer night and it unfolds leisurely, like a summer’s day. You’ll quickly find that the characters have become real and, when the journey finally comes to a close, you’ll be sorry that it’s over.