Wayward Bookshelf

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen Anyone following my reviews lately will probably notice that I've been on a bit of a Sarah Addison Allen kick. And this is because these have been the perfect late summer/early autumn reads for me after a very eventful year thus far. Allen's writing is beautiful & descriptive, and she takes the everyday things like family, work, growing up or old, friendship & acceptance and she makes them magical. First Frost is the second in the Waverley family set after Garden Spells , so if you haven't read that one yet, do that first. This book finds us back in Bascom several years after the end of Garden Spells. Bay is now in high school, Claire has ventured into candy making, Claire & Tyler's daughter is in elementary school, Sydney runs a successful hair salon in town & Evanelle and Fred are still around town anticipating the odd things that people will need. We also learn that the Waverley family magic becomes very restiv

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese Oneill This book is a somewhat irreverant look at 'women's issues' in the Victorian era. And while the issues themselves are not fun, definitely not by today's standards, the author's voice is quite clever as she explores everything from hygiene & clothing, to menstruation & social etiquette. It is written as though she is taking all of us fans of Victorian novels & BBC dramas on a tour of her time, and includes little asides and commentary from our guide that make it fun. Without her being so tongue in cheek, the history presented probably would have infuriated me significantly more than it actually did. The downside of this is that about halfway through the book, the joke did start to wear a little thin, but that may have just been my inner feminist getting riled up. Now, if the cover turns you off, then this is probably not the book for you. It is a very frank

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen I didn't intend to read this all in one sitting - but then I rarely do, and it still happens anyway that I look up at the end of a book only to realize that it's 3am. Peach keeper is a beautiful story about friendship and acceptance; two things that I'm realizing Allen does very well as I read more of her books. Willa owns a camping goods store in a small North Carolina town nestled in a mountain range, and otherwise leads a pretty quite life, but she wasn't always that way. In high school she was known for staging incredible pranks & a sense of reckless adventure. A fact that Colin, one of her former classmates who is visiting continually points out. But something brought her back to this small town after college. This is one of those small towns that has a history & has known the touch of magic. Much that history has been buried for a long time, but when Colin's twin sister, Paxton, begins rennovating a h

Competence by Gail Carriger I'm going to start this review by saying that I am basically a die-hard fan of anything Ms. Carriger does. But Competence was definitely not my favorite. The reason being that Prim's 'primness' for lack of a better term persists for quite a long time while the reader bangs their head or book against walls waiting for her to get to the point and accept that she's in love with a woman and that it's perfectly OK. Now, I probably shouldn't be too hard on Prim because I have been known to be much kinder to those I love while not allowing myself an inch of flexibility in other areas, so perhaps my frustration came from a more personal source, and so I haven't altered my star rating based on that point. One aspect of this book that I do quite love, is that Prim is a queer character, and this book was published with a 'big publisher' instead of self-published. This points to the fact that this it has become possible for u

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen This book weaves local legend & magical realism into the everyday lives of the residents of Bascom, North Carolina. Our focus is on the Waverley family, whose garden is said to produce flowers with magical properties and is home to a rather ornery apple tree. Claire & Sydney are the Waverley sisters, they’ve also got their aunt Evanelle & Sydney’s daughter Bay. All the Waverly’s possess a unique magic. Claire has the family knowledge of the garden and recipes, Sydney has an uncanny talent with styling hair to bring out the best version of people, Bay knows where things belong and Evanelle - whose magic is my personal favorite - is compelled to give people odd things that always seem to become necessary in unexpected ways. And while the magic is a beautiful aspect of the book that enhances our story, the tale itself is more about learning to overcome past hurt, rumors or trauma to learn to trust yourselves and others enough to let