A to Z Challenge: Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

"The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.

A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants - from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys - except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.

When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down - along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other."

It always amazes me when I discover a new to me author and get enthralled in a story to learn that he or she is so young.  There are times I am reading a story and you get the feeling of a very old soul. One who knows, whose lived a dozen lifetimes.  One whose been around a while, been writing forever.   The ladies on the Well Trained Mind group have been talking up a storm about Sarah Addison Allen's novels so decided I must read one.  Garden Spells is an incredibly charming story with an endearing cast of characters blending magical realism and romance with small town politics and secrets.  I thoroughly enjoyed Garden Spells and look forward to reading more of Sarah Addison Allen.

ISBN-13: 9780553384833
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Pages: 320
Excerpt

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday

Every Tuesday, Diane of Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometimes two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph. Feel free to grab the banner and play along!

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Before she became the Girl from Nowhere--the One Who Walked in, The First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years--she was just a little girl in Iowa named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.

The day Amy was born, her mother, Jeanette, was nineteen years old.  Jeanette named her baby Amy for her own mother, who'd died when Jeanette was little, and gave her the middle name Harper for Harper Lee, the lady who'd written To Kill a Mockingbird, Jeanette's favorite book--truth be told, the only book she'd made it all the way through in high school.  She might have named her Scout, after the little girl in the story, because she wanted her little girl to grow up like that, tough and funny and wise, in a way that she, Jeanette, had never managed to be.  But Scout was a name for a boy, and she didn't want her daughter to have to go around her whole life explaining something like that."

Nook book while doing Treadmill

Canyons of Night  #3 in Looking Glass Trilogy by Jayne Castle

"Charlotte folded her arms on the glass topped sales counter and watched the two feral beasts come through the door of Looking Glass Antiques.  One was definitely human, definitely male, and definitely dangerous.  The second was a scruffy-looking ball of gray fluff with two bright blue eyes, six small paws, and an attitude.  The dust bunny rode on Slade Attridge's shoulder and Charlotte was quite sure that in his own miniature way he could be just as dangerous as hsi human companion.  They were both born to hunt, she thought."

Sunday Salon: Editing and emoting!

I'm thinking of...  Davide Restivo

Books that make you think. Workshops that make you think.  Lessons that make you think.   Is it ever possible to think too much?   When my brain overloads, it's time to sit down and watch some mindless television show, let it all stew, then start over again. Last night, I had an epiphany with my story Blue Steel  while trying to sleep. So instead of sleeping, worked on the scene in my head.  I now have a new Mid Point Crisis which works quite well.

How are my fellow rowers doing?  Find out here

The Savvy Authors Workshop Deep Story has been quite simply amazing.  Hubby say he thinks I'm learning more with this class than I did while finishing my Bachelor's degree.  Maybe. The thing is I can directly apply it to my manuscript and see results.  Finally figured out my 18 threshold scene structure once I quite trying to fit every single scene written into it and just deal with the main overall story throughline.  Which was the point of the whole exercise in the first place.  *facepalm*  Sometimes I make things difficult for myself.

Last night I went through all my notes, reorganized and changed some of the plot points to make more sense.  Which is probably why my brain had a hard time shutting down for sleep and I ended up writing scenes in my head.   Have moved on to next step which is determining what emotions and emotional responses want to provoke in each scene and figuring out what events will trigger each plot point, pinch point, turning point and emotional turning points.  Has your brain exploded yet?   Will be using The Bookshelf Muse Emotion Thesaurus to help me.  Quite a handy resource.

Sir John Edward Poynter "an Evening at Home"

I finished Ahab's Wife Friday night. Yes, I enjoyed it. It's one of those books that leaves you thinking and with the idea you'll want to revisit it because it so full and rich, it takes time to digest. Methinks I'll be getting the hard copy version so I can go back and reread and dissect portions at a time. It's not a light read so you have to be in the mood for it.

This week I'll be starting my c books for the 52 Books A to Z alphabet challenge. The Passage by Justin Cronin and Alafair Burke's Close Case. Will probably start with Cronin's book first which is a chunky book at 784 pages and ought to keep me busy a while. I'm slowly working my way through "Reading Like a Writer" by Francine Prose for writing craft study and just started Chapter 4. Plus I'm listening to J.D. Robb's In Death series in the car and currently on # 5 -  Ceremony in Death

So proud of myself. My team mates from Change Write Now have been great incentive and did the treadmill every day last week except for Monday.  Three cheers for me!!!   Networking though with my fellow rowers was a dismal failure so twenty lashes with a wet noodle.  Vowing to do better this week.    Still need to type up those last 20 pages so going to seriously try and get that done, if not today, then this week.

Check out Jennifer Blanchard's (formerly procrastinating writers) new site Inky Bites - Nourish your creativity.  She always has something wise or helpful to say. 

Happy Sunday!

TLC Tour: The Silent Oligarch by Chris Morgan Jones

The Silent Oligarch

By

Chris Morgan Jones

Synopsis:  Deep in the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources sits a nondescript bureaucrat named Konstantin Malin. He draws a nominal government salary but from his shabby office controls half the nation's oil industry, making him one of the most wealthy and feared men in Russia. His public face is Richard Lock, a hapless money launderer bound to Malin by marriage, complacency, and greed. Lock takes the proceeds of his master's corruption, washes them abroad, and invests them back in Russia in a secret business empire. He knows little about Malin's true affairs, but still he knows too much.

Benjamin Webster is an investigator at a London corporate intelligence firm. Years before, as an idealistic young journalist in Russia, Webster saw a colleague murdered for asking too many hard questions of powerful people; her true killers have never been found. Hired to ruin Malin, Webster comes to realize that this shadowy figure might have ordered her gruesome death, and that this case may deliver the justice he has been seeking for a decade.

As Webster peels back the layers of Malin's shell companies and criminal networks, Lock's colleagues begin dying mysteriously, police around the world start to investigate, and Malin begins to question his trust in his increasingly exposed front man. Suddenly Lock is running for his life- though from Malin or Webster, the law or his own past, he couldn't say.

  

Chris Morgan Jones debut novel in the United Stated The Silent Oligarch was previously published in the UK as An Agent of Deceit.    It was interesting story but got off to a slow start with more drama than thrills. It had all the elements of a classic espionage story and though it was well researched and well written, the characters failed to leap off the page.  I like my stories with a bit more emotion and heart pounding, nail chewing suspense and unfortunately it was lacking. All the elements were there, just didn't quite hit the mark.

Be sure to check out the rest of the tour and find out other thoughts and experiences about the story.

Other thoughts:  (uk version An Agent of Deceit)

It's a Crime:
"This is a very solid debut from Morgan Jones and one in which he achieves a rare thing: making the machinations of the backroom boys intriguing.  And on this outing, I suspect his further novels will be even better."

Hugh Carnegy of FT.Com
"An Agent of Deceit is a worthy entry to the long line of spy yarns, and a reminder of how little we still know of wealth and power in Russia, for all the public visibility of the 21st-century oligarchs."

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday

Every Tuesday, Diane of Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometimes two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening paragraph. Feel free to grab the banner and play along!

Readalong with 52 Books

 Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Nook book

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last. Yet, looking up—into the clouds—I conjure him there: his gray-white hair; his gathered brow; and the zaggy mark; I saw it when lying with him by candlelight and, also, taking our bliss on the sunny moor among curly-cup gumweed and lamb's ear. I see a zaggy shadow in the rifting clouds. That mark started like lightning at Ahab's temple and ran not all the way to his heel (as some thought) but ended at Ahab's heart. 

That pull of cloud—tapered and blunt at one end and frayed at the other—seems the cottony representation of his ivory leg. But I will not see him all dismembered and scattered in heaven's blue—that would be no kind, reconstructive vision; no, intact, lofty and sailing, though his shape is changeable. Yesterday, when I tilted my face to the sky, I imaged not the full figure but only his cloudy head, a portrait, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

What weather is in Ahab's face?"

**********************************************************************

Review Book - January 20 TLC Tour

The Silent Oligarch by Chris Morgan Jones

"Chapter one:

High in the air Webster watches the unbroken desert flow past, a deep copper red in the dawn, the sand ridged like waves rolling down toward the south.  Next to him Inessa lies curled up, sleeping through the jolts of turbulence and the drunken songs of the Russian engineers across the aisle.

Below, the sand gives way to grass on the vast Kazakh plain and in the distance, if he presses his face to the window, he can see the Altai mountains rising and stretching east into China.  He glances across at Inessa; she's small enough to be comfortable in her rigid seat, her knees pulled up against her chest like a child.  It's rare to see her be still, rare for her to be silent."

Sunday Salon: Disaster, complications, clues

Studying the craft:  Happy Sunday.  I'm still brain deep into analyzing Blue Steel and figuring out the scene structure.  I was having trouble with it since I hadn't finished typing up the story.  Managed to type up 20 pages yesterday and have 20 more to go.   It helped me remember parts of the story I had forgotten which helped with figuring out the scene structure.  Dominoes.   The workshop is more casual than expected and if you don't have the lessons completed by the end of the month, you can continue in the yahoo group loop. I'd rather push myself, stay on track and with the group.  I work better with structure and deadlines.  

Reading about craft:  I'm in the middle of chapter 3 sentence in Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose.  Between her and the 18 scene structure breakdown with Deep Story, I'm learning how to see stories in a whole new light.

See how everyone else is doing here and give them some encouragement

Exercise: Thanks to ChangeWriteNow and my teammates, I did the treadmill every day except Thursday.  I also cut out eating any snacks after dinner and if I get hungry, have a cup of hot tea.  

Networking:   Unfortunately was pretty much a fail and need to work on visiting at least 5 ROW bloggers a day.  I'm also the host of 52 books challenge and managed to visit all when signed up. I need to work on visiting those who post links to their book reviews so will set a goal of 3 per day. 

Pleasure Reading:  I finished reading Dean Koontz "By the Light of the Moon."  First time author read and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It wasn't spooky gory. It was spooky, chilling, psychological paranormalish suspense story.  Look forward to reading more of his stories.   Also finished "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt. Didn't realize it was nonfiction until midway through. Was so annoyed the narrator didn't introduce himself at all and described in great detail all these weird colorful characters. I kept wondering where's the plot. Note to self - read the back cover more carefully. 

Started a readalong today of "Ahab's Wife" by Sena Jeter Naslund with participants of Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  I began reading it Saturday afternoon. The first couple  pages were a bit tough for me to get, but once got into the story, it really grabbed me.  Jump in and join us. There are 167 chapters averaging 4 pages each for a total of 667 pages. You can read at your own pace and when we come up for air on Saturday January 21, we'll see where we all stand and take it from there.  Or read 48 pages a day which will have you finishing in two weeks.

I'm also reading a review book "The Silent Oligarch" by Christopher Morgan Jones which is being released on the 19th. Not sure how I like it yet but reviewing for TLC book tours on Friday, January 20th so will give it a chance.

Off to plan lessons, do laundry and try and finish typing up those last 20 pages.  Oh and do the treadmill for one hour.  :)