The Peach Keeper

Loved, loved, loved this book! The characters, the setting, the story are all wonderful, and it's got just enough mystical realism to make it interesting. But at bottom it's the story of relationships between people: Willa, Colin, Paxton, Sebastian, and Georgie and Agatha.

Allen is a beautiful writer, she writes some of the best scenic descriptions I've ever read. She also writes intriguing characters: these are not one-dimensional archetypes, these are real people with real failings and quirks and feelings. Perfect Paxton doesn't think she's perfect, and boring Willa has no idea of the inspiration she's given to others. That's what made this story so charming.

But I also enjoyed the small southern town feel, the stuff your grandma told you about ghosts, and the sense of a mystical land separate from the rest of the world. I keep coming back to this author again and again and am never disappointed.

The Peach Keeper: A Novel