Books can be possessive, can’t they? You’re walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its, just to get your attention. – Sarah Allison Allen, The Sugar Queen
I heard about Sarah Addison Allen when reading through some old cannonball posts for inspiration, so it should be no surprise to my fellow cannonballers that, after devouring Garden Spells, I went on to read everything that she’s written, with one notable exception: I could not bring myself to read Lost Lake. This is in part because I found myself so immersed in the other books and in part because it features the untimely death of a spouse, which is one of my worst fears. Combining the prospect of becoming heavily entangled in the book with this plot feature is just not something I can handle right now. However, I did read Garden Spells, The Peach Keeper, The Girl Who Chased the Moon, and The Sugar Queen, and enjoyed all but one of the books. Allen’s descriptive narratives serve as a love letter to female friendships. She emphasizes the friendship between women over romantic relationships, which was a refreshing turn from stories that focus on only one of the many types of relationships that are important to a person.