Garden Spells

Garden Spells is the Sarah Addison Allen novel that put her on the contemporary magical-realism map in 2007. The Waverley women of Bascom, North Carolina, are known in their town for small unspecified gifts (Claire makes catered dishes that produce specific feelings in the eaters; her great-aunt knows what flowers to give to whom; the apple tree in the garden throws apples at people it does not approve of). Sydney, Claire's younger sister, comes home with a daughter and the sort of past that needs hiding.

Allen's prose has the kind of soft-edge Southern lyricism that is easy to do badly and that she does well. The garden itself is the best character in the book, sentient in a way that recalls Practical Magic without ripping it off. The Sydney plot has more genuine danger than the cover suggests.

The romance subplots are conventional. The atmosphere and the sisters' relationship carry the book. Four stars. A comforting read that does not entirely earn its happiness for free.