Garden Spells

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Claire has always clung to the Waverleys' roots, tending the enchanted soil in the family garden from which she makes her sought-after delicacies - famed and feared for their curious effects. Legend has it that their feisty apple tree is enchanted, and that eating its fruit can show you the future. 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. Evanelle, who had twenty-eight sweet teeth, all of them false, picked up her coffee and looked over at the covered cake plate on the stainless-steel island. She has a successful business, using herbs and a touch of magic to create an environment, enhance emotion, or even to increase night vision.

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. And although Claire is able to provide a little magic and help for the other people living around her, she seems unable to claim any of that magic for herself. There is advice on how to attract fairies to the garden and keep on good terms with them, how to create flowerbeds which will produce `harbours of peace and goodness', and a wealth of magical folklore linked to the birds, animals and insects that visit the garden. Half the town wants to get to the tree and eat an apple, but Claire buries every apple as it falls to prevent people from seeing bad things. Claire entered the house through the back, stopping in the sunroom that had been turned into a drying and cleaning room for herbs and flowers.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. I just didn’t expect scenes to include domestic violence, abuse, and intense emotional manipulation. If you’re looking for something to warm your spirit and take you out of reality for a while, I cannot recommend this book highly enough! 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. I enjoyed the sprinkling of other POVs because it fleshed out parts of the story to create a fuller world for the book.

Evanelle Franklin was seventy-nine years old, looked like she was one hundred and twenty, yet still managed to walk a mile around the track at Orion five days a week. Evanelle is known in the community for giving people strange gifts which later become exactly what they didn’t know they needed—a flashlight before an unexpected power outage, for example. Claire had an unconvential upbringing dragged around the country by her vagabond mother until the age of six. Lorelei held Sydney and ran to the Waverley home in Bascom, and the only reason Claire was able to go with them was because she was holding tight to her mother's leg and wouldn't let go. I only wish I’d picked up the rest of her books from the library and I’m going back there to do just that!Claire Waverly—a caterer who makes truly magical meals—and her elder cousin Evanelle are all who are left. Sitting at his father's old desk, he had invoices in front of him, but judging by the way he jumped when Claire opened the door, his mind had been on other things.

But then the apple tree started throwing apples and the story took on a life of its own…and my life hasn't been the same since.The author handled this well – it didn’t feel like she rushed any one aspect of it and there’s still more for her to do to address her wounds from the past. We see it only in glimpses until the climax of the story–in an apple, a revelation, a chance meeting.

Welcome to Bascom,North Carolina, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. Combine two parts Alice Hoffman and one part Rebecca Wells with a splash of Sue Monk Kidd, and you have Garden Spells! The Waverley family has always been a subject of gossip and curiosity, but it’s their garden that makes them famous. I think they grew out of the setting of this weird island, this odd place, this place of southern stories and ghosts and food and how they are misfits, but they find their tribe, they find where they belong with other people who think they don’t belong either.It turns out that Emma's mother Ariel Clark set the situation up to try to show Hunter John that Sydney was trash, and Claire was unaware of her motives. Anise hyssop honey butter on toast, angelica candy, and cupcakes with crystallized pansies made children thoughtful. 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. After finishing Water For Elephants on a Sunday, I started a few books during the week but couldn’t manage to really get going on anything.