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Our Reader's Guide to Garden Spells
A Sweet, Enchanting Novel of Unexpected Gifts

In her first novel, Sarah Addison Allen has written a tender, bewitching book told with captivating invention, peopled with characters to care about, and filled with the irresistible magic of dreams come true.

The women of the Waverley family—whether they like it or not—are heirs to an unusual legacy, one that grows in a fenced plot behind their Queen Anne home on Pendland Street in Bascom, North Carolina. There, an apple tree bearing fruit of magical properties looms over a garden filled with herbs and edible flowers that possess the power to affect in curious ways anyone who eats them.

For nearly a decade, 34-year-old Claire Waverley, at peace with her family inheritance, has lived in the house alone, embracing the spirit of the grandmother who raised her, ruing her mother's unfortunate destiny and seemingly unconcerned about the fate of her rebellious sister, Sydney, who freed herself long ago from their small town's constraints. Using her grandmother's mystical culinary traditions, Claire has built a successful catering business—and a carefully controlled, utterly predictable life—upon the family's peculiar gift for making life-altering delicacies: lilac jelly to engender humility, for instance, or rose geranium wine to call up fond memories. Garden Spells reveals what happens when Sydney returns to Bascom with her young daughter, turning Claire's routine existence upside down. With Sydney's homecoming, the magic that the quiet caterer has measured into recipes to shape the thoughts and moods of others begins to influence Claire's own emotions in terrifying and delightful ways.

As the sisters reconnect and learn to support one another, each finds romance where she least expects it, while Sydney's child, Bay, discovers both the safe home she has longed for and her own surprising gifts. With the help of their elderly cousin Evanelle, endowed with her own uncanny skills, the Waverley women redeem the past, embrace the present, and take a joyful leap into the future.

"All the locals knew that dishes made from the flowers that grew around the apple tree in the Waverley garden could affect the eater in curious ways. The biscuits with lilac jelly, the lavender tea cookies, and the tea cakes made with nasturtium mayonnaise the Ladies Aid ordered for their meetings once a month gave them the ability to keep secrets. The fried dandelion buds over marigold petal rice, stuffed pumpkin blossoms, and rose -hip soup ensured that your company would notice only the beauty of your home and never the flaws…. Honeysuckle wine served on the Fourth of July gave you the ability to see in the dark."

—from Garden Spells

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About the Author

"Garden Spells didn't start out as a magical novel," writes Sarah Addison Allen. "It was supposed to be a simple story about two sisters reconnecting after many years. But then the apple tree started throwing apples and the story took on a life of its own…and my life hasn't been the same since."

Allen was born and raised in North Carolina, and the character of her home terrain is recognizable even in the magical precincts of Bascom, the fictional community in which her novel unfolds. "The name of the town, and Lunsford's reservoir, the local swimming hole, mentioned in Garden Spells," Allen explains, "are subtle nods to Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the man who founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, purportedly the longest running folk festival in the nation."

The author has a B.A. in literature, a major she pursued, she says, "because I thought it was amazing that I could get a diploma just for reading fiction. It was like being able to major in eating chocolate." She credits her father—a reporter and award-winning columnist for a local newspaper—for her "stubborn writing genes." And like Claire Waverley in Garden Spells, Allen herself has a sister named Sydney.

She resides in Asheville, North Carolina, where she is currently at work on her next novel, The Sugar Queen, which will be published by Bantam in Summer 2008.

* Get the most out of Garden Spells with these reading group discussion questions.
  1. If you believed you possessed the magical powers that Claire Waverley has inherited, how would you use them? What's the first thing you would do?
  2. Could you be persuaded that certain plants have powers, as Claire describes and uses them? Does anything in your own experience suggest this possibility?
  3. Claire believes all relationships are temporary, and does everything in her power to fight the pain this causes by ordering her life into predictable routines. Sydney's rebellious youth and history of dangerous, unstable affairs recklessly embraces the emotional turmoil Claire avoids. Whose approach to life resonates with you personally? Are their outlooks two sides of the same coin? In the course of the book, how are their attitudes transformed?
  4. How do you explain Claire's attraction/repulsion to Tyler? Why do you think Claire sees violet sparks hovering around him the first time she meets him? What makes her eventually realize they are destined to be together?
  5. Do you think a child can have the kind of insight and sensitivity that Bay demonstrates? Is a woman more likely to have it than a man? If yes, why?
  6. The four Waverley women in this novel (Claire, Sydney, Bay, Evanelle) have special gifts. Which of the four gifts would you like to have? Why? How would you use it?
  7. Fred Walker observes, "You are who you are, whether you like it or not, so why not like it?" Consider this statement in relation to the characters of the book, including Emma Clark, Hunter John Matteson, and Henry Hopkins.
  8. A bite from an apple from the family tree inspired Lorelei Waverley's flight from Bascom, profoundly influencing the course of her daughters' lives. Would you have reacted in the same way to the knowledge the tree foretold? What alternatives did Lorelei have?
  9. If you knew that biting into a Waverley apple would reveal your future, would you bite? Why or why not?

Further Reading: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

* Praise for Garden Spells

FROM OUR BOOKSELLERS
"Combine two parts Alice Hoffman and one part Rebecca Wells with a splash of Sue Monk Kidd, and you have Garden Spells! A great read for anyone who loves cooking, Southern fiction, or just a great love story."
—Angel Ramandt, Baltimore, MD

"Garden Spells is a magical escape into a world gentled by caring and ancient ways. A sweet story that adds hope to the world."
—Patty Rogala, Birmingham, AL

"This magical story had me under its spell from beginning to end."
—Joni Padgett, Louisville, KY

"A delicious truffle of a book. It will find its way into the most cynical of hearts."
—Amy Abts, Duluth, MN

FROM ADVANCE REVIEWS
"[S]pellbindingly charming, Allen's impressively accomplished debut novel will bewitch fans of Alice Hoffman and Laura Esquivel, as her entrancing brand of magic realism nimbly blends the evanescent desires of hopeless romantics with the inherent wariness of those who have been hurt once too often."
—Booklist (starred review)

"So tender and enchanting, it drew me in on page one, and held me captivated without letting me go for even a minute. I fell in love with Sarah Addison Allen's writing, and her world."
—Luanne Rice, bestselling author of Sandcastles

"Garden Spells is truly spellbinding, beautifully crafted, and as bewitching as the title suggests. This is Southern charm at its most beguiling, with characters you'll take to your heart, a delicious love story, and a magical garden you'll wish was in your own backyard."
—Eileen Goudge, author of Women in Red

"[T]he blending of horticultural folklore, the supernatural and a big dollop of Southern flavor should find favor with a wide swath of readers."
—Publishers Weekly