First Frost

First Frost
by Sarah Addison Allen

I've loved SAA from the first time I read one of her books.  I don't know why this one has gone unread for so long, it may be because I didn't buy it right away.  I found it at an outlet mall a month or so ago and realized it was time. Past time.  Way overdue!

First Frost takes us back to Bascom, North Carolina and the people who we met in the book, Garden Spells.  It's ten years later when we meet up with them again. Magic is still part of the every day lives of the Waverly women, which is much of what I love about Sarah's stories.

Both Claire and Sydney are married to men that love them deeply, but that is not enough to quiet the niggly little fears that live inside their heads.  Sydney's daughter Bay is coming of age, which is to say that no one on earth could possibly understand her less than her mother.  Oh, my heart - been there done that!  And just who is that mysteriously strange older gentleman who lurks nearby? In short, can the Waverly women learn that the people they can depend on the most have always been right there in front of them?

This is not a book with a big suspenseful climax, nor huge mystery or big reveal.  It's a book about feelings and the need and want to belong or know that you are in your right place.  SAA works us through their stories and *spoiler alert* wraps it all up with a pretty bow.  This is a feel good novel and I don't mind in the least that it works out well for everyone.

That is not to say that the bow couldn't come loose or untied... I'm almost inspired to write some fan fiction starting with the next "Ten years later..."

I give this book a five shots of five just because it's the perfect book to read on a stormy day like to today to lift me out of the gray sky doldrums.

Lost Lake

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen

Let me start by saying that Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favorite authors.  I discovered her while working at Barnes & Noble in Utah and since reading her first book have always looked forward to everything she's published.

What draws me back to S.A.A. time and again?  Her magic.  Everything she writes has a hint of magic in it.  Not slap you in the face magic, but a subtle magic that I always look forward to.

What will you find at Lost Lake?  An alligator, Cypress knees, a mute French cook, a floozy, a nightly lakeside barbecue, an odd assortment of guests, a lost soul redeemed, a new love sparked, a past love reignited, vengeance, an unexpected opportunity, a new life and second chance.  Or just maybe your own sanity.

Never a major resort, Lost Lake has been run for many years by a couple who's own love story was magical.  But only Eby Prim, one half of that couple, still lives and the resort has been overshadowed by water parks and theme parks. The resort is tired and a bit neglected and the time has come to sell.  The few faithful guests who return to Lost Lake each year decide to make this last summer their best.

Kate Pheris finds herself agreeing to move into her mother-in-law's home a year after her husband has died.  While packing for the move she discovers a letter from her great aunt Eby that was never delivered to her years before. Impulsively she makes the long drive to Lost Lake with her daughter and she decides to stay a while, remembering fondly the summer weeks she spent there when 12 years old.

Sarah Addison Allen reveals the truths and secrets of each guest and employee staying at the resort, intertwining their pasts with their present.  The residents of the small nearby town have their own stories that tie them to Lost Lake and the land it occupies.  And with a little magic Sarah brings all the stories together in a completely engaging way.  Some secrets revealed are heartbreaking and turn out to have been not so secret at all.  But this small town community watches after it's own in the best way it can and makes Kate's impulsive trip her fate, the act that ultimately decides her future.

I give Lost Lake five of five shots.  I continue to adore Sarah and her characters.

The Firefly Dance

The Firefly Dance
Various Authors

I picked this one up specifically for the Sarah Addison Allen story since I was needing a "Sarah fix."  But like most compilations I was a bit disappointed.  I don't know if it's that the stories are too short to get into or just not entertaining enough... or perhaps I was rushing through them trying to get to Sarah's selection.  Yes, I think that's more probable now that I think about it.

Each story is about childhood and the sometimes painful path leading out of it into adulthood.  

Sarah's work was several little vignettes that followed a family through 3 or 4 phases of their lives.  Each could stand alone and together were interesting but almost like reading a diary of someone's "every day life."  I missed her usual touch of magic.

My favorite was the selection by Phyllis Schieber that was a portion of her novel, The Manicurist.  I found myself ready to read more after the three chapters included in this book and I am sure I'll do so eventually.  The author grabbed me with the exchange between a manicurist and her odd customer, followed by her husband's aversion to her intuition. There is so much more I want to know about the story.

Don't you hate it when authors end one book with the "free peek" at their next?  In the form of the first couple of chapters?  Um, yeah, that's what happened here.

I'm giving this three and a half shots of five.

The Peach Keeper

The Peach Keeper
by Sarah Addison Allen

I believe this is the 4th book by author Sarah Addison Allen. She is one of my favorite "fluff" writers. Her books are are fun and easy to read "feel good" novels. I always enjoy the characters she creates and their lives in North Carolina. There is always someone or something in the story that is enchanted or has some sort of small magical powers, which is why I look forward to her books so much. In this story the magic is more a part of the past and alluded to instead of being a bigger part of the story. I did enjoy that she brought a character from her first book into the story in a small role. Of course it makes me want to go back and re-read her first novel. Since they are very quick reads, I may just do that.

Ms. Allen definitely has a formula she follows, but her reinvention of the story each time keeps me coming back for more.

Willa was raised in a small town and always felt less than equal to her classmates. Her family was one of the founding families of the town as lumber barons of the time. But when the forest was designated a national forest and logging was banned, her family lost their fortune. Although her grandmother was just a teen when this happened, Willa felt that her family was looked upon with pity or disdain. After leaving for college and then returning, she finds her own place in the town and settles down to a quiet life that she believes she was meant to live, keeping pretty much to herself.

The opposite end of the social spectrum is Paxton who has always been one of the rich and popular girls, who's family also went back several generations. She is president of the Ladies Society which her grandmother and Willa's grandmother founded in their late teens with four other local girls. Currently, Paxton is planning a 75th Anniversary Gala for the club to be held in the "Madam" the mansion originally owned and then abandoned for taxes due by Willa's family. Paxton's family has restored the mansion as a hotel/restaurant.

Along with Paxton and Willa, the story includes Paxton's twin brother Colin, who prefers to return to the town only on very short trips and Sebastian, another past classmate who recently returned to the town to replace the dentist who had retired.

Through the events of the story, the re-opening of the Madam, the planning of the gala, a mysterious skull being dug up and more, these characters examine who they were and who they thought they were in high school and who they have become since. The plot is totally predictable, but the story is fun and emotionally satisfying.

Five shots of five, but only if you are not looking for a story of great substance and import. This is for fun and fantasy only!

The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

I love Sarah Addison Allen. I fell in love with her style of writing with her very first book, Garden Spells. Her whimsical magical style carried through into The Sugar Queen. I waited and waited and waited for The Girl Who Chased the Moon to be published with great anticipation.

I enjoyed TGWCTM, but not with the same enthusiasm I read my way through her first two books. Some of the magical was just right. Some was too much. The town she created was delightful, I'd visit in a heartbeat. But the townspeople were not well developed. The personalities did not grow to overcome their oddness. In this respect I felt let down. I felt the author pushed too hard in one direction, just right in another, and not enough in a third.

The story is about a young girl, Emily, who comes to this town to live with a grandfather she never knew she had. He is a giant of a man. He's either shy or reclusive, I am not sure which, although he does go out for breakfast every day. The awkwardness between him and his newly found granddaughter plays out just a little too well, as I never felt comfortable with the character myself.

Emily soon discovers that the townspeople hated her mother. Their hate was based on her youth as a selfish and cruel young girl. They believed her actions led to the suicide of a young man from one of the town's finest families. However, the mother Emily knew was involved in every cause possible to make the world a better place. The two personalities of one woman did not mesh.

The secrets of the town and the mystery of her mother's past are uncovered as the story progresses. The whimsical touches that endear me to this author are of a character who can see the sweet smell of baking as a flowy, glittery breeze.

The other main character of the story is a woman who returns to the town to settle her father's estate and pay off his debts. Her plan is to leave the town again when she's accomplished this. She also has secrets and a past to be discovered as her own history is revealed.

I am not saying I didn't enjoy The Girl Who Chased the Moon, but I will say my expectations were higher.