*Review* The Peach Keeper – Sarah Addison Allen

The Peach Keeper

Sarah Addison Allen

288 pages

ISBN 9780553807226

Read 6-17-11

     In Sarah Addison Allen’s The Peach Keeper, Paxton and Willa are the granddaughters of two women who founded a local women’s club that will be celebrating its 75^th anniversary.  A gala is to be held for the anniversary gala at an old historical home that Paxton has had renovated into an inn, but when a tree on the property is removed, a skeleton is discovered, and family secrets that tie the two girls together start coming to the surface.  This is a wonderful story about friendship, love, and self realization. 
     I absolutely love Allen’s style of writing; it is very lyrical and beautiful with such a smooth flow.   She is able to paint such a clear picture of what is going on that you don’t have to try hard to imagine the story playing out.  The characters are very strong and likeable; the author puts them through situations that many people experience in real life that are not just found in fiction, making them relatable to the readers. Each character has their own personality and they mesh well with the other characters.  I really like the relationship between Willa and Paxton and I enjoyed how their friendship grew and became a strong bond, not to mention their relationships with Colin and Sebastian. 
     The setting is in a small NC town called Walls of Water, and it feels like it is its own little world; cozy and close-knit (mostly).  There is also a small magical touch to it that adds to the mystery of what happened in the past.  This novel is so well-written that you can’t help but to be sucked into it and become involved with the characters.  The Peach Keeper is such a beautiful novel; beautiful style, beautiful story, beautiful cover, and I highly recommend it to any and every reader. 

 Lovely, engaging, meaningful, highly recommended, 4.5 stars!

*Review* Matched – Ally Condie

 

 

Matched

Ally Condie

384 pages

ISBN 9780525423645

Read April 2011

Format: Hardcover

Source: Own

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander’s face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate… until she sees Ky Markham’s face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it’s a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she’s destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can’t stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society’s infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

I am a huge fan of young adult books, and today I am going to be reviewing Ally Condie’s Matched.  Once I got started with this book, it was so hard to put it down; I actually read most of it while I was at the airport on my way to Florida.  It was a super fast read and even after I was finished, I was starving for more.  The cover is what originally caught my eye with this book, and I thinK a girl trapped in a bubble is a great image for this story; the way this society is, I would feel trapped in a bubble, too.

Intro and First Review – Witches of East End

Hello!  This is my review blog, it’s also my first blog; period, unless you count my old Myspace profile entries.  I hope any who come to read my reviews enjoy them and find them helpful.  I am definitely a huge bookworm and this blog is for others and myself, sometimes people need help picking a book, and I love to write what I think about books I read, so it’s a win-win situation!  I hope my blog is enjoyable and check back for more reviews!  🙂

Vyki

Witches of East End

Melissa De La Cruz

288 pages

ISBN 9781401323905

Read 6-4-11

Format: Paperback

Source: LibraryThing

From the author of the highly addictive and bestselling Blue Bloods series, with almost 3 million copies sold, comes a new novel, Melissa de la Cruz’s first for adults, featuring a family of formidable and beguiling witches.

The three Beauchamp women–Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid–live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret–they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there’s Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.

For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it’s time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.

With a brand-new cast of characters, a fascinating and fresh world to discover, and a few surprise appearances from some of the Blue Blood fan favorites, this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil.

This is the first entry of my book review blog, so I am very excited to have this started.  My opening review is going to be Melissa De La Cruz’s Witches of East End, which I won as an advanced reader copy (ARC) from Librarything.  I chose this one first since it was released yesterday.  This novel is about a family of witches (a mother and her two daughters) that live in a small town and are restricted from using their powers so they live like regular people.  Strange things start happening in the town, and the witches are determined to find out what it is, even if it means getting into trouble for disobeying the restriction.