Ache for You - Ben Lee

The Peach Keeper

Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Pages: 273
Publisher: Bantam

Brief Summary:
Willa Jackson moved back home to Walls of Water when her father died and left her the house. A prankster in school for reasons she never really understood, she felt guilty for having failed her educator father. Paxton Osgood, on the other hand, seems to have everything totally under control, just like she did in high school. She heads up the Women's Society Club, which performs charitable work while also giving the classy local ladies a chance to show off. Then again, Paxton still lives at home and has fallen in love with her best friend, who, she's pretty sure, is gay. Both Willa and Paxton are in for some surprises when the restoration of the old Jackson family home by the Osgood family unearths some family skeletons (literally).

Review:
The Peach Keeper is Allen's fourth novel, but only my second of hers. I read her first book, Garden Spells, last year and positively adored it. This one definitely did not disappoint and has convinced me that all of Allen's books will need to make their way into my personal collection at some point. Even though I do not normally care for southern fiction (ironic that, being a southern girl myself, Allen does it perfectly. The fact that the stories are set in the south both do and do not define the stories (which I realize is super unclear, but I know what I mean). The characters do not drawl everything, but there is a southern-ness that I can't really explain.

What makes Allen's work shine amongst other chick lit books out there is the magical realism. There is always an element of magic, not the Harry Potter kind, but magic all the same. It's a magic that, as the term suggests, is accepted as natural, and really does seem to be. The magic has a subtlety and possibility to it that makes me really want to believe that the real world is Allen's world.

Plus, there's the romance. I do not read too much chick lit anymore. At some point, it just stopped actually striking me as particularly romantic or believable. Allen's romances are quite simple. They don't try to surprise you too much; you know who's going to end up with whom, which frankly you pretty much always do. Again, the delightfulness of the romance stems from the sheer cuteness and the chillness of it. There is no bodice ripping or exuberant sex scenes, and yet you can feel your heart do little happy skips. Or maybe that's just me.

Although I think I preferred Garden Spells a bit overall, I still loved reading The Peach Keeper. I highly recommend Sarah Addison Allen to fans of chick lit and to people who really want to believe that love and magic really exist.

"There's no rhyme and there's no reason
You're the secret in the back of my skull
There's no logic, so please believe me
Our love's confusing, but it never gets dull"