Garden Spells

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For nearly a decade, 34-year-old Claire Waverley, at peace with her family inheritance, has lived in the house alone, embracing the spirit of the grandmother who raised her, ruing her mother's unfortunate destiny and seemingly unconcerned about the fate of her rebellious sister, Sydney, who freed herself long ago from their small town's constraints. She had no idea about the security of having a name until her mother brought her here, to this house where her grandmother lived.

Eventually, Claire discovers she can no longer deny the chemistry building between her and Tyler and the two of them have sex in her garden. The handsome man who has moved in next door who makes no secret of his attraction to Claire doesn’t help her preference for calm solitude either. That left Claire, who craved stability and a constant after starting her life on the move and there she remains, living in her grandmother’s house after her death.With Sydney's homecoming, the magic that the quiet caterer has measured into recipes to shape the thoughts and moods of others begins to influence Claire's own emotions in terrifying and delightful ways.

Sydney, on the other hand, left Bascom without letting even her sister know where she was, or how she was.Claire Waverly has structured her life so much that she doesn’t have room for anything else, including love. What I wasn’t a huge fan of was that the love interests were pretty boring and didn’t have many character traits and that the magic was a bit under utilized. Claire is a Waverly, which means she tends to a garden and knows its secrets — what the plants can do to a person — and how to use them.

Anyway, Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen is totally a rip-off of Alice Hoffman’s wonderful book Practical Magic, so if you’ve read that one or seen the movie with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, you get the premise. When Evanelle brought you something, you were usually going to need it sooner or later, though that cat bed she gave Claire five years ago had yet to find its use. The book ends with Bay lying beneath the apple tree, recreating a dream she had about being in the garden. The house that's been in the family for generations, the walled garden that mysteriously blooms year round, the rumours of dangerous loves and tragic passions.

She runs a successful catering business, and everything is just fine, until her estranged sister, Sydney, moves back to town — she’s on the run from an abusive boyfriend — with her daughter Bay. Tyler comes to pick Sydney up and Claire alters the food with flowers from her garden that cause the partygoers to regret their treatment of Sydney. The Waverleys are known for their magic touch: Evanelle, who's lived in Bascom all her life, gives people what they need before they know they need it; Claire, who came to town when she was six and never wants to leave, can turn the plants in her garden into delicious food and drink with spectacular effects on those who consume it; Sydney, who ran away from her home town at 18, hasn't worked out what hers is. That’s if, like me, you love descriptive prose and sweet stories set in small towns with quirky characters and interesting recipes. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Bascom, North Carolina is a town where everyone is known for their family's characteristics, passed down through generations. Like Senate, Allen focuses on women discovering their path and maintains a pace that allows readers to sink into the story and linger. She resides in Asheville, North Carolina, where she is currently at work on her next novel, The Sugar Queen, which will be published by Bantam in Summer 2008. Garden Spells tells the story of two sisters, Claire and Sydney Waverly, both of whom have magical powers in some way. The name of the town, and Lunsford's reservoir, the local swimming hole, mentioned in Garden Spells," Allen explains, "are subtle nods to Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the man who founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, purportedly the longest running folk festival in the nation.

Sydney decides to find another way to make a living and rents a chair at a local salon to make use of skills she learned when she attended cosmetology school.