First Frost. Sarah Addison Allen

First Frost
Sarah Addison Allen
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Date: 20th January 2014
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 304
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

It's October in Bascom, North Carolina, and autumn will not go quietly. As temperatures drop and leaves begin to turn, the Waverley women are made restless by the whims of their mischievous apple tree... and all the magic that swirls around it. But this year, first frost has much more in store.

Claire Waverley has started a successful new venture, Waverley’s Candies. Though her handcrafted confections—rose to recall lost love, lavender to promote happiness and lemon verbena to soothe throats and minds—are singularly effective, the business of selling them is costing her the everyday joys of her family, and her belief in her own precious gifts.

Sydney Waverley, too, is losing her balance. With each passing day she longs more for a baby— a namesake for her wonderful Henry. Yet the longer she tries, the more her desire becomes an unquenchable thirst, stealing the pleasure out of the life she already has.

Sydney’s daughter, Bay, has lost her heart to the boy she knows it belongs to…if only he could see it, too. But how can he, when he is so far outside her grasp that he appears to her as little more than a puff of smoke?

When a mysterious stranger shows up and challenges the very heart of their family, each of them must make choices they have never confronted before. And through it all, the Waverley sisters must search for a way to hold their family together through their troublesome season of change, waiting for that extraordinary event that is First Frost.

First Frost is another story about the Waverley family, we first met them in Garden Spells.  It is over four years since I read Garden Spells so I was a little hazy.  However I wasn't long into the book when I was remembering Claire and Sydney, the Waverley house, their families and that apple tree! They are all a little older and perhaps a little wiser.

Claire has abandoned her cooking and now makes candies that are sent all over the country.  It is a lot of hard work and she is somewhat out of sorts with herself.  Sydney who can do magical things with hair now has her fifteen old daughter growing up and wanting to connect with Josh whom she feels she belongs with. That's Bay's gift she just knows what belongs with what.  Sydney does not want Bay to be deeply hurt as she was as a young girl in a relationship, so she goes to great lengths to keep Bay and Josh apart.  Sydney also longs for another child and in the meantime she enjoys Charlie, the small son of Violet the young woman who is the receptionist at the salon. While Violet is irresponsible Sydney sees something of herself in her at that age and wants to support her.

The Waverleys are unsettled, things are afoot as they wait for first frost, when the apple tree will blossom.  Into the mix arrives a strange, mysterious old man, he is there one minute and disappearing the next.  What does he intend and why is he here?  Whatever about anyone else, Anne at the inn where he stays, sees something in him that she longs for and may just push him who knows where!

In that time before first frost, things go a little awry for Claire, Sydney and Bay.  There are times of discomfort and longing, pain and anxiety.  But the men married to Claire and Sydney love them and accept them and just want to let them be who they are.  And as first frost falls all is sorted and the warmth of love, friendship, magic and acceptance reigns as the tree once again blossoms and they are surrounded with joy, revelation and a readiness to move into a promising future.

I enjoyed my trip back to Bascom and I hope that a little down the road we might visit again this eccentric and magical family.

Lost Lake. Sarah Addison Allen

Lost Lake
Sarah Addison Allen
Publisher: St Martin's Press
Date: January 2014
Format: e-ARC
Pages:304
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The first time Eby Pim saw Lost Lake, it was on a picture postcard. Just an old photo and a few words on a small square of heavy stock, but when she saw it, she knew she was seeing her future.That was half a life ago. Now Lost Lake is about to slip into Eby’s past. Her husband George is long passed. Most of her demanding extended family are gone. All that’s left is a once-charming collection of lakeside cabins succumbing to the Southern Georgia heat and damp, and an assortment of faithful misfits drawn back to Lost Lake year after year by their own unspoken dreams and desires.

It’s a lot, but not enough to keep Eby from relinquishing Lost Lake to a developer with cash in hand, and calling this her final summer at the lake. Until one last chance at family knocks on her door.  Lost Lake is where Kate Pheris spent her last best summer at the age of twelve, before she learned of loneliness, and heartbreak, and loss. Now she’s all too familiar with those things, but she knows about hope too, thanks to her resilient daughter Devin, and her own willingness to start moving forward. Perhaps at Lost Lake her little girl can cling to her own childhood for just a little longer… and maybe Kate herself can rediscover something that slipped through her fingers so long ago.

As I finish this book, I put my Kindle down and sit quietly.  I just feel the sadness and the joy, the wonder of just having read a book that was all I could ask of from a story.  Sarah Addison Allen has a gift for writing stories that are mysterious, magical, imaginative and beautiful.  I loved this book and just know it is one I will want to reread - a definite keeper.  I know at the end of 2014 I will define it as one of the best, if not the best.

The main characters felt so real to me - I wanted each character to have a book of their own - I fell so much in love with so many of them!  Throughout the book the reader is gradually given the back story of Eby, Kate, Lisette, Bulahdeen, Selina and Wes.  Then there is Devin - Kate's daughter, Cricket Kate's mother-in-law, Jack who loves Lisette - even Luc the lover who committed suicide when Lisette turned him down, Billy and the alligator.  All of them have fascinating stories.  All are searching for life, love and fulfillment.  Many are unsure of the path, or what their next step needs to be, but gathered at Lost Lake gradually relationships are healed and revitalised.  What seems like what may be the ending, doesn't need to be.  As Maudie tells Bulahdeen so many years ago "You can't change where you came from but you can change from where you go from here".

Lost Lake - the setting - is a place where "anything is possible".  It is a place where many of the characters are deeply contented and at peace.  It is a place that some of them lost (Kate) and where there is the threat that it will be lost now to all of them permanently.  It is run down and almost forgotten, but yet still a place of importance.  Will it be bought up by a developer and turned into something soulless, or can it be restored and rejuvenated, taking its proper place in the lives of the people who truly value it.

While this story is contemporary and mostly realistic, there are those touches of magic and fantasy, and moments of history that explain the past and bring it into the present.  Sarah Addison Allen has the ability to meld all these parts into a seamless story,  magic and fantasy is a facet of her books that gives them a particular uniqueness and takes the reader away into the magical realm of storytelling.