Friday, April 29, 2011

TLC BLOG TOUR: THE PEACH KEEPER




Sarah Addison Allen does it again

Reader, I love this lady’s books! Love them!

I also sort of love her. Just join her facebook page or read her random Sarah Addison Allen facts on her exceptionally amusing website and you will be charmed.

Allen writes for the everywoman. If you speak “girl”, you will LOVE Sarah Addison Allen. She pays attention to the slight magic that silvers every day experiences, she turns fairytales out of the ordinary and she crafts romantic twists, spins and turns that will send your heart thudding. Moreover, her recipe is made of the ingredients of normalcy. She makes you believe that this could happen to you and drives it home with characters, towns and instances painted with utter realism.

If you have a heart, a penchant to believe in the extraordinary and the slightest will to imagine the impossible, then Sarah Addison Allen’s well-defined characters make you believe that something is just waiting for you around a colourful corner--- in the same way it is waiting for them.

You cannot JUST read the Peach Keeper. Buy it and savour it, yes, but know that when you turn the last page that a.) you will go and thumb through the book to re-visit your favourite parts b.) you will immediately want to revisit Sarah Addison Allen Land and will be itching to get your hands on anything else she has written.

If you have read and enjoyed Alice Hoffman, Angela Carter, Fannie Flagg, Billie Letts , Cathy Lamb or Rebecca Wells, you will LOVE Sarah Addison Allen. I argue that she is the best of all because, like the best authors, she allows her personality drip through into every word.

There is something comforting about reading a Sarah Addison Allen book, something that spirits you to a time and place you are nostalgic for ( even if you never lived there), something that folds you in the relaxing aura of home. Care-free and shoes-kicked-off, you’ll sink into her story and not want to leave.

At the center of the Peach Keeper are two remarkable women: former high-school prankster Willa Jackson and socialite Paxton Osgoode. Though their paths have crossed numerous times in the small town of Walls of Water, North Carolina, deeply-hidden family secrets, twists of romance, and the excavation of the dark and disturbing past plaguing the renovation of the Blue Ridge Madam inn bind them together in a way that asserts and exhibits both of their strengths and weaknesses. Though starkly different, Willa and Paxton’s pasts, determination and flaws complement each other remarkably. You will see a little of yourself in each of these heroines ( as you will in all of Addison Allen’s heroines) and you will root for their triumphs and the romance that awaits each in the least likely of places.

This is a marvelous, engaging, curl-up-with-a-cup-of-tea book that will have you sighing for hours after you leave it.

At times painful, romantic, sparkling, mysterious and humourous, you will live for the characters and hope every last thread will be tied into a knot worthy of their happy endings.

Don’t worry---they will be.


Alongside my copy of the Peach Keeper, I received a Yankee Candle---peach flavoured and featuring the book’s delicious cover.

What a treat!

But, the best treat of all was the arrival of a new Sarah Addison Allen--- she’s a book drug if ever there was one

Follow the TLC Blog Tour here:

My sincere thanks to TLC for granting me the privilege of diving into a new Allen book!

2 comments:

Kailana said...

I really enjoyed this book. Glad you did, too. I enjoyed your review. :)

Unknown said...

Oh lovely. Hope to read this one soon!