Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Wow, if you liked Practical Magic, you will really enjoy this book as well. The Waverly family is well known in Bascom, North Carolina as being a little strange. The apples from the tree in their back yard will show you the most significant happening in your life. If it's good, the rest of life pales in comparison and if it's bad... you spend the rest of your life trying to avoid it. That's what happened to Claire and Sydney's mother. She ate an apple and spent the rest of her life running. It affected the way both Claire and Sydney grew up. Claire clung to the town while Sydney couldn't wait to get away. But now Sydney's back with her young daughter.

I would definitely compare this to Alice Hoffman, not least because of the mystical elements, Claire is a fantastic gardener and can cook emotions into the food she serves up in her catering business. Sydney's daughter knows where things belong. And Clair and Sydney's cousin Evanelle always knows when to give people things (including giving condoms to a married woman whose husband is known to be impotent). Great read, would love to read it again.

Four and a half stars

This book came out August 28, 2007

Waverly Family #1

Followed by First Frost

Borrowed as audiobook from Audible Plus catalog

Opinions are my own

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

Zoey grew up with a much older father and a volatile mother. Right after they divorced, her mother died and, when Zoey's father remarried, there was no room left for her. But it's okay, because she's going to Mallow Island, to the studio apartment her mother left to her. It's part of a small apartment complex that was bought and refurbished by an author, Roscoe Avanger, who is best known for his book about the Island. He only had one big hit but it was big enough that he could buy several properties and set himself up for the rest of his life. 

The first night Zoey is there, one of the other tenants, Lizbeth Lime, dies, buried under hundreds of copies of Roscoe's books. Her death, and Zoey being asked by the property manager to go through the hoarding of printed pages that Lizbeth left behind, sets off a series of events where the other tenants, Charlotte, Mac, and Lucy, will start to intertwine. Before, Lizbeth kept them separated by spying on them all and making everyone stay indoors.

Lots of magical realism in this book up to and including Zoey's invisible bird but woven into the story. The near ending was a little too much but this book is just another reason to really enjoy anything Addison Allen writes.

Four stars

This book came out August 30, 2022

Borrowed as ebook from Libby

Opinions are my own

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

Image linked from Goodreads

I was so nervous when I started reading this book. A continuation of "Garden Spells," the first book I ever read by Allen, the book that started her magical realism series, couldn't possibly be as good as the first?
Why did I doubt? This is a fairly simply plotted story with some conflict but it seems fairly gentle. Instead of a rollicking tale, we get a character study of who Claire, Sydney, and Bay have become. We even learn a little more about the husbands of Claire and Sydney and how they've adapted to ten years of living with Waverly women.
Addison's world building is so complete. With women who have just a hint of magic, but nothing spectacular. We find out that Claire has shifted into candy making rather than catering (though she's very unhappy about this). Sydney is still doing hair and excelling at it, but she feels like her husband needs a son and she's worrying about the lack. Bay is now fifteen and she's come into her own. She knows where things, and even people, belong. This has caused her some heartache since people don't always like to be told that they're not where they're supposed to be.

Four stars

Waverly Family #2

Follows Garden Spells

Opinions are my own