First Frost

I adored Garden Spells and so was curious find out what the Waverlys had been up to since then. Sadly, this one didn't quite hit all the same/right notes that its predecessor did. I liked the family isn't just blood, sometimes it's found theme and that Claire, always the level headed one was questioning her place with her loved ones, with her life, with everything. My problem was the way Claire's questioning was instigated - Russell and his grey shyster suit and gone in the blink of an eye abilities felt weak and wispy. Like there wasn't anything there but smoke, the non-magical kind. On top of that, Sydney's desperate for another child story felt predictable and repetitive. Haven't made up my mind where Bay and her story is concerned. I liked her magical OCD but the whole note to Josh and then sitting on the school steps every. day. felt, well, a little bit creepy.

Still I there wasn't anything to make me put the book down and walk away for good. I enjoyed the writing and as always Evanelle is a fantastic character (love Fred too).

Just like Garden Spells, this book takes you to a magical place and fills you up with warmth. It just made me feel cozy and at home and I was so happy to see the great great characters of Garden Spells again - also in this book, they felt so real, so honest and so familiar. Great read!

The whimsy and magic continue.

Close to a 4 but not quite. It was fun to visit the Waverleys again.

I'm not sure there was enough story left to warrant a sequel to Allen's first book, Garden Spells, but her voice is so hypnotic that it doesn't really matter. Allen proudly carries the magic realism banner forward, and she doesn't fall victim to the Hallmark Hall of Fame sentimentalism that doomed Luanne Rice's later novels. I wasn't thrilled to realize that most of the novel would revolve around teenaged Bay Waverly, and the boy who she is sure she “belongs with” but Allen makes the cliched plot work by focusing on the two characters' inner growth and relationships with others, and by keeping the relationship relatively low key until the very end.

The subplots for the Waverly sisters, Claire and Sydney, have much lower stakes this time around, but it's good to re-visit them and see their happy marriages. The most interesting characters to me were the secondary ones - the mysterious old man who appears in town, the woman who runs the local inn with her brother, the aging homosexual who is the live-in caretaker for the sisters' ailing cousin Evanelle, and Bay's bus stop friend and fellow social outcast. With a few brief words, Allen manages to flesh out these characters and make the reader connect with them, even the ones who are less than heroic.

Happy to hear that Allen has been in remission for three years from breast cancer. Long may she write in good health.

Another book with the Waverleys!!!! Is it January yet!??