Garden Spells
This is a sweet little apple of a book, as long as you don't expect too
much from it. It's a short and easy read with a quirky, simple charm. I
found it somewhat reminiscent of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic.
From Amazon:
"Take a pinch of marigold to stimulate affection, add a dash of
snapdragon to repel evil influences, finish with a generous helping of
rose petals to encourage love, then stand back and let nature take its
course. It may be the recipe for Claire Waverley's successful catering
business, but when it comes to working its magic on her own love life,
she seems to be immune to the charms found only in the plants that have
always grown behind the Waverley mansion. Spellbindingly
charming, Allen's impressively accomplished debut novel will bewitch
fans of Alice Hoffman and Laura Esquivel, as her entrancing brand of
magic realism nimbly blends the evanescent desires of hopeless
romantics with the inherent wariness of those who have been hurt once
too often."
Excerpts:
"She had lived thirty-four years keeping everything inside, and now she was letting everything go, like butterflies released from a box. They didn't burst forth, glad to be free, they simply flew away, softly, gradually, so she could watch them go. Good memories of her mother and grandmother were still there, butterflies that stayed, a little too old to go anywhere."
"He spent a lot of time sitting these days, which he didn't mind so much. It gave him time to think. Truth be told, he had always looked forward to this time in his life. When he was a boy, his grandfather lived the life of Reilly, his days full of big breakfasts, hunting when he felt like it, sleeping in the afternoons, and picking the banjo in the evenings. That, Lester thought, was the way to live. You even got money in the mail every moth, like clockwork. So Lester decided early on that he wanted to grow up and be retired."
"He stared up at the moon, which looked like a giant hole in the sky, letting light through from the other side. He took deep breaths of the wet grass and warm roses and the black pavement from the highway that was still so hot from the summer sun that it melted at the edges and smelled like fire."
