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| September Pick |
I love this book!
In fact, a really, really love this book – and my
desire to recommend it to as many people as possible was a big motivator for
starting this blog.
Sorry, I just had to throw that out there . . . now
on to the review . . .
In Bascom, North Carolina, every family has a
‘trait’: the Hopkins men always marry older women, the Kelly women are fantastic
at sex and the Waverleys are ‘strange’, each bearing a magical gift. The
Waverley house has a magical garden that fruits and flowers throughout the year
and a cantankerous apple tree with a mind of its own. The apples cause people
to see the most significant event of their life, which could be good or bad, so
the Waverleys always collect and bury them. However, sometimes the tree gets
frustrated and starts throwing them at people.
Claire is comfortable with her Waverley gift, which
is the ability to take things from the garden and use them to affect the people
who eat her food. Her baked goods and catering company are very successful. Her
younger sister, Sydney, has run away from her thug of a boyfriend with their 5
year old daughter, Bay. Fearing for their lives, she has run home, to the
sleepy Southern town that she left years earlier to escape her family name. She
has yet to embrace her gift, to make people look beautiful, but Bay has been
using hers for years. She knows where things should go, and has been trying to
keep her father happy so that he won’t get angry. The only other Waverley is
Evanelle, a cousin who is 79, but looks 120, and has a real appreciation for
the male backside. Her gift is to know what people will need in the future, although
she has no idea why she should take someone a mango slicer, for example: the
locals tolerate her as a harmless eccentric. We follow the Waverley women as
they deal with Sydney’s arrival and the aftermath.
I am always a little cautious when approaching a
highly recommended book, film, etc. as there is always the fear that it will
not live up to expectations. That could not be further from the truth for
Garden Spells. The writing is amazingly evocative and the characters are beautifully
drawn with such brevity that a single sentence can say as much as several pages.
For example, Bay is named after her father’s restaurant, a fact that gives us a
shortcut to understanding his character. The developing romances are emotional
and you are genuinely moved by the reality of the relationships. Strangely, for
a story involving magic, it is so true to life that you feel very close to the
characters, laughing and loving with them. Nothing seems strained or out of
place, characters make decisions that seem sensible and there is little to
break the spell that draws you to keep turning the pages. Indeed, most of us
finished the book in one sitting because we couldn’t stand to put it down. The
plot moves along at a nice pace, with plenty of dialogue and time to smell the
roses, but no sections that seem drawn out or unnecessary. Great writing,
setting, plot, characters, dialogue make this the perfect read. However I do
have a complaint . . . I wanted more: I wanted to stay with these people and
watch them as they lived out their lives. I wanted to trot beside Evanelle
rating the backsides of the new Freshmen; to follow Bay through school; to find
out if Fred got what he wanted . . .
In short: I LOVE this book – go and read it!
